


Untitled 2

by lesbleusthroughandthrough



Category: Rugby Union RPF, XV de France
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:39:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 39,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbleusthroughandthrough/pseuds/lesbleusthroughandthrough
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As yet unfinished</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

_Marcoussis, March:_

“Maxou,” Morgan’s voice was soft as his breath tickled Max’s ear.

“Mmmm...?” Max was roused slowly as Morgan’s hand drifted down his back. “What?” He stretched his limbs, wrapping his thighs around Morgan’s and pulling him closer. He didn’t like that they drifted apart when they slept. “What... time is it?”

“Sshhhhht, Kay’s asleep,” Morgan’s whisper was loud as he kissed him, and Max wrapped his arm around his neck.

“I’m awake now,” he said back quietly when Morgan was done, nestling back softly into his neck. “What is it?”

“Tell me... something about you. Something that I would never guess from looking at you.”

Morgan woke him up often with these kinds of interrogations. Max knew he didn’t get his chance to ask during the day, so he tolerated them.

“Hmmmm,” he planted a kiss on Morgan’s jawbone. “I... I dunno.”

“Just... something that you’ve always done. Since you were a kid. And that no one would ever guess you’re good at.”

“That’s a very specific question.”

“Everyone has one.”

Max sighed. “I... guess... I play the clarinet.”

Morgan snorted. “The clarinet?”

“Yeah. My mom liked the instrument, so I did all the grades in school. It was really good for extra credit.”

“Are you being serious?”

“How could I make that up?”

Morgan spluttered. “No wonder you’re so good at blowing things- OW!”

Max bit him, and hard.

“Don’t make fun of my clarinet, or I won’t play it for you.”

“I’d much rather you played mine- AGH! Owwww,” this time Max bit down harder and didn’t let go, “I’m sorry, I’M SORRY!” He heard Kay mumbling in the next bed over and pressed his hand over Max’s mouth, silencing his giggles, but grinning himself at the expression on Max’s face. The one he made when he laughed, and the sides of his eyes crinkled and even in the darkness he could see them twinkling.

_My entire existence would be easier if he wasn’t so cute._

Max was shaking with silent laughter. “Where did I get you?”

Morgan kissed his forehead. “I love you. And... your clarinet.”

Max couldn’t hold it back any more and burst out laughing, Morgan clapped a hand over his face to shush him.

“Shhhhhhh, shhhh,” he was barely keeping a lid on his giggles himself. Max pulled him closer and kissed him.

“What about you?” he asked, breathless.

“What about me?”

“Your dirty secret.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I guess... I bake. Sometimes. You know how I like to walk on the wild side.”

Max raised an eyebrow.  “There’s nothing wrong with being able to cook, I wish I could. Oven pizza is about as gourmet as I get.”

“I’m not talking about cooking. I’m talking about BAKING. Proper, old English, afternoon tea stuff. And only at times of dire stress. Like... for my _baccaleureat_ , it was brownies. But not just any brownies, I’m talking about brownies where I had perfected the walnut-to-chocolate ratio.”

Max smiled. “I’m not finding any fault with this. What else?”

“When I moved to Clermont first... it was Baked Alaska. I got very good at it. Actually, I think that’s what won the rest of the guys over... those that escaped my wit and charm.”

Max went back to kissing his neck.

“And... mmmhhh... the week before we played the Top 14 final... I swear everyone on the team got a Victoria Sponge.”

Max snickered. “Lucky them- its good cake.”

“And...” he sighed as he felt Max’s lips brush his collar bone, “after my first night with you... crumble.”

“What kind?”

“Every kind. I made quite a few.”

Max paused. “I don’t like crumble.”

Morgan was surprised. “You don’t? Everyone likes crumble. Especially mine, as it turns out.”

Max snickered as he shook his head. “I don’t.”

“What would you like me to make you, then?”

Max raised his head so he could look at him. “I dunno... when we were in Edinburgh that time... I guess I really liked their biscuits?”

“Scotland have special biscuits?”

“Yeah it’s called shortbread. Mmmm, it was buttery.”

“I see.”

“I think,” and Max tighted his grip around Morgan’s waist, he could tell he was getting ready to go back to sleep, “if you could find a way... to mix chocolate and shortbread... you would very definitely be my hero.”

“I think... given the type of situation that would force me to do that... let’s hope I never make them.”

“Amen,” Max mumbled, squeezing him tightly.


	2. Two

_May_

 

Morgan had opened the front door of his apartment and suddenly his arms were full- of something that squeezed his waist, wrapped arms around his back, had lots of hair that was soft against his cheek... something that smelled very much like...

“Max?” he asked, stunned, and then his mouth was full of him too. Morgan forgot where he was- his hands trapped Max’s cheeks- they were cold, and pulled him closer. Suddenly that piece of him that had been missing for nearly two months was back and his insides warmed as though he’d swallowed some very hot soup.

“Surprise!” Max’s breath was warm and there was the familiar faint taste of coffee on his tongue. His duffel bag dropped to the floor. “I knew you had this week off for the barrages and tomorrow is my only free day before them... I needed to see you,” Max’s face flushed pink despite his cold skin and he was smiling so hard that it took over his whole face. “It started as torture and has only got worse. I got straight on the train after training tonight. A four hour train! It’s cold in Paris, sorry, I’m in a coat.”

Words were falling pell-mell out of his mouth but Morgan was barely listening as his eyes searched every inch of Max’s face- he hadn’t shaved in a while, his eyes were still as huge and round and bright, but the circles under them were darker than in March.

“You’re still beautiful,” Morgan smiled and Max kissed him again. “I missed you.”

“You’ve no idea,” he hugged him, “God, I missed you too.”

Morgan then remembered where they were and his stomach clenched with fear.

“Max...” he began, but stopped. He didn’t want to send him away. He couldn’t. He’d missed him so much that every day had been hell. He loved him, his Max, his Max who’s arms felt so right around him, whose kisses would never, ever be beaten by anyone else’s. And yet...

 _I’m going to lose him,_ panic swirled around his stomach, _oh my God, what have I done?_

“I want to see the place,” Max let him go, “c’mon, you’ve seen mine plenty of times over the tour.”

Morgan froze. _Tell him to go_ , his head screamed, _tell him to leave and come back later. Tell him to call next time. Push him out the door and slam it shut behind him._

But Max had already skipped passed his shoulder, giving his hand a squeeze on his way, talking about how Morgan’s hallway was already bigger than his entire apartment.

Morgan closed the front door and doubled up against it, forcing bile back down his throat.

He’d forgotten just how much he loved him.

 _He’s going to hate me_ , he thought desperately, and his brain started to swim. He squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled himself back up. The panic was making it hard to breathe. _He’s going to hate me._

He took a deep breath and followed him into his sitting room.

“I can’t believe you have a couch,” Max was saying, turning to look at him, “I still don’t even have a couch. Or a television!”

 _He’s so beautiful._ Morgan’s breath caught in his throat. _He’s never going to forgive me. I am an idiot._ Morgan tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he started again. “Max...”

Max cocked his head to one side and smiled at him. “What’s wrong? I’m sorry if this was a bit too much of a surprise, I know I should have called, but...”

Morgan’s eyes darted across the room to his open bedroom door, where Wes was stumbling out- pulling jeans up over white y-fronts.

Max’s head snapped around when he heard the zip and he froze.

“Maxime!” Wes exclaimed, surprised- and he looked accusingly across the room at Morgan. “What are you doing here?”

Max didn’t answer, and Morgan was glad he couldn’t see the expression on his face while trapeze artists practised in his gut.

Wes reached for a t-shirt on the back of the couch and pulled it over it his head. “It was nice to see you, buddy,” he said- and reached out for Max’s hand, who didn’t offer his own in return. After several awkward seconds, Wes left it and strode across the room to Morgan.

 _Don’t_ , Morgan pleaded quietly, but he knew he would.

Wes’s arm wrapped around his waist on the way past, “I’ll see you later,” he said.  Morgan shuddered, and turned his head away so his lips could only graze his temple, squeezing his eyes shut. The feeling was familiar at this stage, but his skin left none of the tingle that Max’s did. They were just a comfort, something that could fill the void, a stupid habit that he’d created between them.

 _What have I done?_ The sob choked him as it rose in his throat.

It was only when he heard the front door click closed again that he dared to open his eyes and look at Max.

The absolute horror on Max’s face made him feel nauseous, but he crossed the room in several quick strides and caught him as his shaking knees collapsed. Max’s hands clawed at his arms as he struggled to right himself, and Morgan pulled his face into his chest and buried into his hair.

“’I love you Max?’, ‘I need you, Max?’, ‘Are we an “us”, Max?’... fuck. Shit. Oh my God.” Max’s body began to spasm as he spat Morgan’s words back at him. Morgan’s tears were wetting the top of Max’s hair as his chest contracted at the thought of what Max was going through. And how it was his fault entirely.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, although he knew his words were empty.

“Why didn’t I see this coming? Oh... fuck.” Max’s breathing became laboured as his anxiety attack grew. “When I hadn’t heard from you I just thought... I am WITH you, don’t you get it?! And when... the last time- when-when I let you talk me into... I-I- just assumed, that meant... why him?!” Morgan let the words tumble out of Max’s mouth. “You know how I feel, Morgan- how could you do this?” Max’s grip tightened, pulling at large chunks of Morgan’s t-shirt as his fists balled and his body shook with sobs.

“He’s fucking you, isn’t he?”

The question was quiet, but it cut Morgan like a knife. His breath caught in his throat again and he squeezed Max’s body. He tried to take in the feel of it, how Max folded around him, how right it felt... trying to remember before he never held him again.

 _You knew any conclusion he’d jump to would be right_ , his head screamed. _You knew you wouldn’t be able to deny it_.

“I don’t love him,” he said finally.

“He is,” Max gasped and he stumbled backwards. “He IS fucking you- SHIT!” He pulled at his hair, his face was screwed up and blotchy from crying. “Shit... FUCK. How could you?” he wailed, “How could you do this to me? With HIM?”

Morgan felt hopeless, he could feel Max slipping away- he dove in and grabbed Max’s face with his hands, forcing him into his kiss, tasting his tears and standing strong when Max struggled against his iron grip.

“I don’t love him,” he said again, crying; it was all he could say. “I love you.” Because it was the truth.

He kissed him again but Max bit down hard on his lip and Morgan yelped despite himself. Max wriggled out of his hold.

“Bullshit,” he said, spitting blood at Morgan’s feet, and tripping over his legs as he backed back out towards the front door. Morgan heard it slam but he was already reaching for his phone.

“Brice... No wait, don’t hang up, it’s me- Morgan!” He wiped his face on his sleeve as he tried to slow his breathing. “I’ve been so stupid... I-I... I’ve lost Max... I need to know if you can help.”

Something inside him that felt very much like his heart, snapped.


	3. Three

The lift was taking too long so blindly Max stumbled down the stairs- tripping over his feet and rolling down the last few steps, groaning as he smacked into the floor- the smell of bile stinging his nose as he heaved.

“Oh God,” he sobbed, curling up on the floor, burying his head into his knees, “Oh, GOD.”

Images flashed through his head of them together- the contrast of Wesley’s skin on Morgan’s, loose tongues, travelling hands- and he retched again.

This is what he got for letting his guard down. It had taken him so long to trust Morgan, but he’d thought he was safe... after all Morgan had said, all they’d done, all the time they’d spent together. He’d felt so right with him. And now... now...

Eventually he ran out of tears and his stomach stopped rocking. He wiped his face with his sleeve, pulled himself to his feet and staggered out the front door of the apartment building. It was dark, but he could still remember the way back to the tram. Back to the tram, to the train station, back to Paris.

He never wanted to see either of them again.

“Maxime!”

But it didn’t look like tonight he was going to get that wish.

Wes had been sitting on a bench outside and leapt to his feet when he saw Max.

“I’ve been waiting for you- I have to talk to you-“

“Fuck off, Fofana,” Max snarled as he marched past him.

Wes back-pedalled after him.

“I know, I know about you two! And-“

“Really helping.”

“- and I’m not going to let you leave him! Look, listen to me-“

Wes made the mistake of putting his hand on Max’s shoulder, and Max swung round- his fist connected with Wes’s face, making a sickening crunching sound.

“Agh!” Max shook out his knuckles as Wes crumpled to his knees. Shit, that hurt a lot more than it did on television. It felt good though, he thought, as he watched Wes roll around on the floor.

“No, its okay,” Wes muffled from the ground, clutching his face, “oohhh, it’s not okay, but I deserved that.”

Max snorted and marched away towards the tram stop... but then he became aware that Wes was still following him, hands pressed to his nose.

“What is WITH YOU?” he snapped. “FUCK OFF!”

“NO!” Wes yelled back at him, breaking into a trot as Max quickened his pace. “I’ll follow you the whole way back to Paris, if that’s what it’s going to take for you to listen to me.”

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say, alright?” Max roared over his shoulder, “leave it!”

Wes tried again. “He loves you!”

“Oh my GOD!” Max finally reached the empty tram stop and turned to face him. “He lets you shove your cock up his ASS! When he’s meant to be with ME! HOW IS IT EVEN RELEVANT IF HE LOVES ME OR NOT?”

“So, you ARE together?”

“Not any more we’re not. Wait, what are you even talking about?”

Wes bent over, panting- blood was seeping out his left nostril. “This only started because of how much he missed you. And I took advantage of that... because... I didn’t believe him.”

Max stopped, confused. “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

The tram arrived and he backed on, and Wes stumbled after him, the door slamming shut behind him.

Close up, his nose looked bad- it was twice the size it usually was.

 _And yet... I’m not feeling any remorse_. Max smiled to himself.

Wes saw it and gave a congested, “what?”

“Your nose is a fucking mess, man.” Max couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ll sort it out when we’re done,” he wiped away excess blood with his jacket sleeve.

Max only felt angrier as he watched Wesley up close. He had half asked himself what Wes could possibly have that Max didn’t- but it was a stupid question.

He had everything Max didn’t. He was tall- taller than Max, the same height as Morgan. His hair always behaved, his skin was that dark, exotic, chestnut-ty colour while Max was the colour of slightly spoiled milk. He was ridiculously handsome and this was only aided by how he oozed confidence, while Max spent most of his time hiding under his hair and had never understood what Morgan had seen in him anyway.

“Maxime,” he began.

“Max,” Max corrected, “if we’re going to have this conversation, I’d rather you didn’t address me like my grandmother.”

The tram rocked in to motion.

“Max,” Wes started again, “Morgan... didn’t tell me about you. Just,” he added hurriedly at Max’s furious expression, “not in so many words. It was only in his apartment today that I realised it was you and, I’d spent a long time hoping you were a figment of his imagination.”

“I was what?”

Wes coughed. “Ever since we got back from the Six Nations, Morgan has... had a lot of trouble sleeping. And when we play away with Clermont, we don’t normally room together but this one time Jubon was injured, so... And there’s something you should also understand before we start...” he swallowed, “I may always have been that little bit in love with him.”

Max knew he looked murderous.

“Don’t make that face at me. When I arrived at Clermont, he was younger than me, but he looked after me- showed me around, introduced me to everyone... he had it all sorted out. How could I not be? It was ... stupid, every time he’d bring me home after a night out I’d try and kiss him and he’d just... laugh at me. So I worked at it, and I was pretty sure I was over it.”

 _That’s because when you get drunk, you’d kiss a tree if it looked at you sideways_ , thought Max. “But you weren’t,” is what he said instead.

Wes looked at him sternly.

“BUT we were playing Biarritz away, it was the night before the game and he was tossing and turning like a hurricane. He was keeping me up, and Biarritz for us was a pretty big clash, they’d beaten us the season before. So,” he wiped more blood from his face, “in the end, I gave up, climbed onto his bed, and pinned him down with frustration to stop him moving. And then I realised... he was crying. What was I supposed to do? And then... once my arms were around him... it just felt so good, yknow-“

“I know,” Max growled.

“Sorry- but in his defence, he tried to push me off. He said he had someone, that he missed a lot and that why he was upset. He didn’t tell me who, he said that they- you- didn’t like other people knowing about it. So, I just thought, it was a defence mechanism, yknow? To let me know that... he didn’t want... THAT... from me.”

Some people sitting down the tram were turning to stare at the mess Wesley’s nose was becoming.

“But I did. I realised that a part of me still wanted that from him, and badly. He let me stay, he let me hold him, and when he was finally asleep... I... kissed him.” He swallowed.

“I hope he punched you.”

“He kissed me back.”

“And then he punched you?” Max offered hopefully.

“No... just when I started to get excited he... called out... for you.” Wes whispered. “’ _Maxou’_. I didn’t connect the dots and realise ‘Maxou’ was you, until today. I just thought it was a sound he made, I dunno, when he was turned on... or something.”

Max’s stomach dropped. He remembered how that word sounded when Morgan whispered it in his ear, how it made his spine quiver.

“Nothing happened that first night,” Wes continued when he saw Max’s horrified expression, “he pushed me off and repeated what he’d already said- that he had someone, and the distance between you was slowly gnawing away at him- but he let me stay because he said it helped him sleep and he hadn’t in a while. I should have listened, but, I only took it as encouragement.” He took a deep breath. “So... after that trip away... when we got back... I showed up at his place and... Offered my services. No, NO- not like that. Just to help him sleep. I said I could be your substitute- sarcastically of course, because I didn’t believe you existed. He told me again that he was someone else’s, made me promise that I understood that but...”

“And... then you fucked.” Max was aware in his peripheral vision at someone sitting nearby flinching at the word but he didn’t care, he suddenly felt very ill again.

Wes shrugged. “I wore him down. At first it was only kissing but then that began to lead to... other things.”

The tram dinged to a stop at the train station and Max slowly turned and walked off, dazed.

“I’m not done,” Wes was still after him.

“Don’t you think you’ve said enough?” Max was so exhausted from being angry that he didn’t even have the energy to cry. “I have a train to catch. And you... I’m not sorry for hitting you, but you should probably get someone to look at that.”

He looked up at the departures board in the main hall of the station and his heart sank- the next train to Paris wasn’t for another four hours.

He changed tack.

“Go back to him, I give up,” he shrugged. “He’s all yours.”

Great. Four hours of crap food, hard metal chairs and trying NOT to think of Morgan having sex with someone else.

“He’s not. He doesn’t love me.” Max couldn’t believe Wes was still talking. Did he WANT Max to snap, and kill him?

Max gave a very sarcastic laugh. “Oh, he will. Eventually.” He gave him a mock salute and hoisted his bag higher on his shoulder. “Don’t give up kiddo.”

“He loves you.”

Max was in hysterics.

“Yeah, right. Clearly.” He snorted. “You know, that he couldn’t wait for me. Two months isn’t that long. It’s not like I wasn’t suffering up in Paris. Alone. With no one to sleep with either, eh? Just a four hour fucking train ride away. I haven’t slept properly in... I don’t even know. I’m on pills for it and special diets and all sorts of crap, and- just LOOK at me!” With one hand he circled one of the purple-blue bags under his eyes.

“I’m really, really sorry.”

“Oh, no,” Max was sure he was laughing instead of crying, “it’s not you. No, you” and he stabbed his finger in Wesley’s direction, “did not commit yourself to someone else only two months ago. Promise yourself to someone else. Another person who had never, EVER,” his breath caught in his throat, “told anyone, that he’d loved them before, and who told you every night. So, no, Wesley, I don’t blame you.”

He collapsed back onto one of the waiting room seats and suddenly found the strength to cry. An arm was around his shoulder but he didn’t have the energy to push Wes off as he shook.

“You love him too,” Wes said quietly.

“D-duh,” Max snivelled. “And d-d-espite... YOU.” He wiped his eyes. “I have n-never wanted a-a-ah-anything more than I want him r-r-ight now.” Max couldn’t stop the words falling out of his mouth. He hadn’t even told Brice just how much Morgan meant to him, that he even loved Morgan at all, and here he was: blubbering away to guy he was about three seconds and some bad phrasing away from strangling.

“You both belong together, that’s why,” Wes was saying quietly, “I know he doesn’t particularly enjoy what we were... I mean, I-“

“Oh GOD,” Max pressed his hands down over his ears, “please d-don’t. I don’t want to hear any m-more.”

“Seriously, Max- he doesn’t want to be with me.”

“Would you be surprised,” Max looked at him even though he didn’t want to, even though it made him sick, “if I didn’t b-believe you when you said that?”

Wes smiled as he shook his head. “No, but,” and he pulled Max into his chest so Max could soak the front of his coat with snot and tears. He even smelled good. “Please believe me when I say: if you leave him now, he is going to break so badly that nothing is going to fix him.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe that either.”

“Seriously... Maxou-“

“DON’T. CALL ME. THAT.” Max shoved him away and his head sank between his knees instead. He pushed his eye sockets so hard into bone that he saw stars behind his closed lids.

Wes’s hand was still on his arm but Max understood at this stage that this guy was just not going to drop it.

“It’s his name for you, isn’t it? It sounds better when he says it. He says it in his sleep sometimes... ‘ _mon ‘tit Maxou_ ’...”

Wes had done nothing but make Max feel worse, but calling him “Maxou” was the most painful thing of all.

“Please,” he gasped, “stop calling me that.”

“I wish Morgan felt enough for me... to call me something. He doesn’t. He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t react when I touch him. He doesn’t react when I... fuck... him. And I saw how he was looking at you today. I know, when it’s you, it’s different. He looks at you... like...” Wes paused, and added quietly, “I wish... someone could look at me like that.”

Max just cried harder into his knees, although his head was starting to hurt.

If everything Wes was saying was right, Morgan wouldn’t have let him near him. If Morgan had really felt that way about him, he would have waited it out. He’d waited longer. They all knew it; at least, they all should have known it. Wesley here clearly didn’t.

Max swallowed loudly. His mouth still tasted like vomit.

Wes was squeezing him. “I can’t compete.”

Max took a few deep, shuddering breaths, calming down, and sat back into the chair, clearing the tears from his eyes.

“I’ll go back and see him,” he said finally, after he’d let everything run through his brain.

Wes shook his shoulder. “Good!”

Max swallowed. “I’ll go back and see him... but I’m getting back on that train to Paris tonight.”

Wes frowned and Max shook his head, shutting his eyes, trying not to look at him. Trying not to think of him with Morgan, being with him in ways that Max had never been confident enough to. Blocking the images filling his head of the silver cross around Wes’s neck sliding over Morgan’s stomach.

“I can’t do it,” he hiccupped. “I can’t forgive him. I owe it to him to tell him in person, but... we’re over. We’re done.”


	4. Four

His sick still lay all over the ground floor of Morgan’s apartment building. Max wrinkled his nose and opted for the stairs again, brain running through the conversation they were about to have.

Morgan would open his door. Surprised, he’d ask Max to come in, but Max would refuse. And then he’d just tell him: tell him he was going back to Paris, and they were finished. Morgan would protest, try to reason with him. But Max was certain- he could keep up the facade.

The image of Wes hooking his arm around Morgan’s waist- like it was a routine, like he did it all the time- was enough for Max to put on a convincing show.

He didn’t want to be hurt any more, and this was twice now.

But before the door opened, he smelled it- the faint aroma of melted butter and strong vanilla essence, And when the door opened and Morgan stood there: frowning, confused, an apron tied around his neck and a smudge of flour on his cheek, he didn’t even have to say it.

Max didn’t think he could cry any more- at this stage, there could not possibly be any fluid left to evacuate his body, but he felt the lump rising in his throat.

“Not...?” he squeaked. And then he crossed the threshold in two long steps, caught Morgan’s face in his hands and kissed him.

Morgan’s lips tasted like vanilla and cheeky swipes of biscuit mix and Max let his fingers weave into inky black hair as he forced his mouth to open. Morgan pushed him back against the door, closing it, and Max wriggled out of his coat so Morgan’s arms could wrap around his waist and pull him tighter. He reached up on his toes, leaving Morgan’s mouth so he could clear the flour from his cheek with his tongue. It dried the back of this throat.

“I’m sorry, Maxou,” the words were soft against his ear, the drag of every syllable making Max’s spine tingle.

“Shhh,” he whispered, reaching behind Morgan’s head to undo his apron, letting it fall to the floor, kissing him hard and desperately as he pushed against his chest- pushing him back, back out of the hall, into Morgan’s sitting room, steering home towards his bedroom door, never letting their mouths part.

Morgan pulled off Max’s shirt and Max pulled him close again. Morgan’s mouth was hungry, needy, the prickle of his chin rough against Max’s.

Max needed him. He needed him now.

When Morgan reached for his own tshirt Max let him go, silently cursing the fact that he’d worn jeans, and a belt, fingers slipping over the buckle as he tried to undo it, cursing under his breath- and then Morgan’s hands were on his- slowly inching his jeans, his boxers, down- Max gasped slightly as Morgan’s hands passed over his crotch, pausing, eyes widening, breaking the kiss. It had been so long since they’d done this... every part of Max ached as he felt that electricity between them... he’d missed it...

Morgan nosed his face until he found his mouth again.

 “I love you,” Morgan’s breathing was shallow against his lips.

“Quiet.”

Morgan was in his jogging pants, and Max let his hands linger on hips as he stretched out the elastic, making Morgan moan with frustration and grasp the back of Max’s head, tugging painfully at his hair as he let them drop down his legs.

And then he stepped back out of them and Max felt the familiar thrill of the vague warmth of his skin, that heat; that pulsed from his belly as they pushed together and that he could feel as his cheeks pounded at their proximity. Every inch of Morgan’s bare skin was now his.

Morgan’s knees buckled and Max pushed him onto his back on the carpet of the living room floor- it would have to do. He untangled his tongue and let it glide down Morgan’s neck, run small circles over his wonderfully firm stomach as he sank nails into his thighs, responding to the pace of Morgan’s ragged breathing. Morgan’s spine arched as Max’s mouth reached hips, his teeth torturously pinching at skin. He pushed Morgan’s legs apart, navigating even further down- wetting him, biting him, stretching him, working him- letting his tongue slide as he felt shaking fingers press against the back of his head, gripping his hair, pressing it down.

Max travelled back to bury into neck, feeling thighs tense against his sides as he pushed inside Morgan and he slowly began to fuck him. The decibel of Morgan’s growing screams in his ear made them ring, his hand rested under the small of Morgan’s back, raising him up to aide with the movement as he began to go faster, deeper. He could feel Morgan working himself and the brush of his nails against his belly every time he bucked in response to Max’s thrust.

Max reached with his free hand for Morgan’s as it tugged at the side of the couch behind his head and squeezed it. Nothing else mattered but the choking, blinding, gripping love he felt for this body, this body he had penetrated and that responded so well to his own as it writhed on the floor beneath him. Max nuzzled Morgan’s throat as it vibrated and he felt warm, wet come splash on his underbelly and kissed at his mouth as it hung open, both their lips trembling- Morgan’s hand was wet as it suddenly gripped his hair, the fingers on the other clawing at Max’s, lacing them, tangling in them, his palm soaking with sweat.

Max thrust harder as he started to feel himself come apart, swallowing it back, trying to hold himself together as Morgan’s legs started to spasm at his sides, his whole body shifting as Max pushed. He focused on the sensation of Morgan around him entirely, pressing on him, wet...raw... tight. He could feel Morgan’s face contort as he nosed Max’s hair, breath hot against the small of his neck as he repeated his name, over and over again, somewhere between a whisper and a moan and a scream.

And Max came, breath stopping, knees burning as they slipped on the carpet as he struggled to keep himself inside. He came hard, harder than he had ever before, feeling his limbs go heavy as he emptied entirely into Morgan, feeling the warm as it oozed out and down his thigh. And Morgan was there, with his beautiful eyes and his lips and his touch- clasping his hand after Max slid out of him; drained, whimpering.

Max hadn’t realised that he’d forgotten to breathe and took in huge lung-fuls of air. His legs trembled as he pushed to his knees, following Morgan as they inched back and lay down on the couch, wrapping around each other. Max felt as though the last few months of little to no sleep were starting to catch up with him... and this was so nice... and Morgan’s hand felt so lovely finally back in his.

“Why is your back so warm?” he mumbled, running his fingers up Morgan’s spine.

“I think you gave me carpet burn,” Morgan whispered back, hoarsely. “That’s not the worst.”

Max let his hand drift down Morgan’s back, touching the skin gently where he knew he would be hurting more. Morgan’s eyes closed. “Your fingers are cold. So cold.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Max said. “I tried to... y’know... the best I could.”

“It’s good sore,” although Max had felt it himself, and he knew it wasn’t, “and that,” Morgan swallowed loudly, “was good. So, very, good.”

“Only ‘good’?”

Max finally freed his fingers from Morgan’s and, captivated by the adoration shining in the other man’s eyes, slowly ran a finger up and down the curve of Morgan’s nose.

“Why have we never done that before?”

“Because it feels that good when you do it to me,” Max said, as-a-matter-of-fact-ly, “every time you do it to me. Why would I stop you?” He let the tip of his finger gently press on the end of Morgan’s nose. “And... last time we tried, Kay banging on the door and yelling about his disrupted sleep pattern didn’t help, did it?”

Morgan’s soft laugh turned into a cough as it hit his abused throat. “No,” he rasped, “but I can’t remember the last time I came that fast.”

Max wasn’t listening anymore, he was focusing on the gentle curves of Morgan’s cheekbones and how lovely and rough his jaw felt along his palm.

“You’re nose is really pretty,” he murmured sleepily, stretching up to plant a kiss in between his eyes.

Morgan reached back and placed is hand on Max’s as it rested on Morgan’s lower back. “Every piece of you is pretty.”

Max scoffed. “Ta guele, Let me sleep... Hold me.” He added the last quietly, so quietly that he wasn’t sure if Morgan had heard, but he felt his own face flush- nestling further into the grooves of Morgan’s body.

“You’re beautiful. Always.”

Max sighed and kissed him. “You’re very nice, but we both know there is very little truth in that.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow and moved even closer, and Max felt his legs still trembling as they pushed against his.

“No?” Morgan slowly moved their hands over his hip and on a devious trail down Max’s stomach.

“Wesley Fofana,” Max snarled suddenly, with a lot more venom that he thought he was capable of mustering. Morgan halted, aghast; or amazed, Max couldn’t tell. Max searched his brain for a word that could adequately describe how much like a god Wes had looked as he’d swaggered half naked from Morgan’s room only a few hours previously but came up blank. He knew he must be tired if he couldn’t come up with anything smart, so instead he exhaled furiously, rolled over on his other side and pressed his face into the back of the couch.

The couch smelled like Morgan. More accurately, Morgan’s socks.

“Hey,” Morgan’s arms wrapped around his front and Max felt his nose press into his ear. “He has nothing on you.”

An hour ago, Max could have had this conversation. The conversation where they’d talk about where they were going and whether it really meant anything if Morgan deviated so easily. But he’d zapped the last of his energy when he’d just snapped, and he knew if they fought, he’d have to leave. Leaving Morgan would be complicated enough- as previously demonstrated, Max never wanted him more than when he was furious- but every inch of Max ached so much that he didn’t trust himself to make it to the door without collapsing. Or- but mostly likely, and- without certain carnal acts coming to pass on Morgan’s living room floor again.

Max didn’t push him off. Morgan’s body was always so warm, and the thin layer of sweat that had formed on his skin was beginning to cool, chilling him. He’d missed what they had too much.

Morgan continued when Max didn’t answer. “Not only,” he whispered, “is he not nearly as beautiful as you are... but he doesn’t make me feel like you do. No one ever has.”

Max scoffed, unimpressed.

“And our Wesley... bless him, he does have a little trouble connecting the dots from time to time.” Morgan squeezed his hand.  “None of your acute observations.”

“Because how well I can insult you is so important during sex.”

“Well,” Morgan paused, contemplating. He blew softly at Max’s rat’s tail, making the tip of his spine tingle.  “Also... you’re... um, bigger.”

“Oh please,” Max groaned, “I had the ‘You’re Getting Fat Again, Max’ conversation with my mother last week-“

“Nuh-uh, Max...” Max heard the amusement in his voice as Morgan curved around him so his lips brushed Max’s ear as he whispered, emphasizing the syllables, “BIG-ger.”

Max stiffened, a grin gradually spreading over his face.

“Really?” The word slipped out before he’d thought too much about it.

Morgan chuckled softly. “In a way that is neither immature nor superficial...” he said, and yawned, snuggling in between Max’s shoulders, “ohhhhh, yeah you are.”

 


	5. Five

Morgan waited until Max was asleep before he slid his arms under instead of over Max’s. He liked to hold him, all of him at the same time, but it was just physically impossible. Morgan was taller, but Max’s shoulders made up for that in width- they were nearly twice as broad as Morgan’s.

He knew he’d got off very lightly so far with the whole Wesley situation, but he didn’t want to push it. He wanted to prolong what little time they might have left. But he dreaded their upcoming conversation.

He wasn’t sure how to put it into words Max would believe, even though they were true. He didn’t love Wes, not like this. Wesley was one of his closest friends, he saw him every day. He was one of his favourite team mates to be around.

And in Biarritz when push should have come to shove... Morgan hadn’t shoved. The first few days without Max had been okay, but it had started to go deeper. He couldn’t sleep. He was so tired at times that his appetite faded. And not a word from Max, not a word.

How much he’d needed Max was breaking him, and then Wes’s arms were holding him together. And it felt good. And although the problem wasn’t completely fixed, suddenly it was bearable- and suddenly he could sleep.

And then it escalated. Wes stayed every night. Morgan let himself be kissed before they slept- imagining it was Max. Even though, at first, Wes was nothing like him. He didn’t smell like Max, he didn’t kiss like Max- his lips weren’t as soft, or as gentle, and he didn’t bite. Wes didn’t hold him, didn’t touch him- but clung to him. But, slowly, as it happened more often, and as Morgan’s memory began to fade, it began to make life liveable again.

And it had been... nice.

Wes was always there the next morning, and there was never a rush to get out of bed before training, or before someone saw. They went for coffee like they always had after training and talking to him was just so _easy_. Some nights he came over early and then he came over so they could make dinner, and soon, as his visits became more frequent, he’d simply follow Morgan home after work.

But he wasn’t perfect. Though Morgan had tried, and was trying his hardest, to plug the gaping, Max-shaped hole in his heart sometimes his deep longing drove him to tears during the night, tears during the day, and after that first long post-game Sunday when they’d lain in bed until late afternoon and Morgan had finally let Wes have the sex he craved, Morgan had locked himself in his bathroom and cried his eyes out.

Wes was patient. So patient. And _stunningly_ beautiful; sometimes when they were out people followed him with their eyes the whole way down the street. Sometimes Morgan had caught himself starting at Wes in awe and he’d had to snap quickly out of it.

But he didn’t love him. He hadn’t thought about it at the time, but he’d been certain the minute Max’s lips had touched his.

Because as perfect as Wesley was, nothing could ever match the feelings he had for the man in this small, warm body that he fitted so perfectly around. Max had captivated him that very first night in Paris and even now the mere thought that he was finally with him threw Morgan’s stomach into somersaults. Being with Wes was comfortable and nice but it had none of the fire Max brought with him. Wes was his friend but Morgan never had the urge to hold him, to touch him, to fuck him. And the entire time he had been with him it had been the thought of Max that had made him come.

Morgan didn’t know what to do. Even in his head, this explanation sounded tricky. He didn’t see there being a way out of this where Max didn’t leave. But Morgan would still love him, he would love him no matter what Max had to say or how much he pushed him away.

And that was the problem.

Morgan shivered. His living room was freezing, and the lights were still on, blinding through his eyelids.

He didn’t want to sleep, even though his body ached to. He never wanted to forget what it felt like to be with Max again.

But still... it couldn’t help to be warm. And this couch was solid under his already aching hips. He remembered the biscuits and his stomach rumbled.

Carefully, he pulled away from Max, kissing his cheek, and backed towards the kitchen, where two trays of-still-slightly-warm buttery shortbread sat on the countertop.

Morgan fetched some water for his throat and swallowed one... two... six, giving a satisfied burp and then yawning. He wandered back in to Max to see he’d rolled over in his sleep.

Max slept like an elephant seal- snored like one too- but he still looked divine as he did, Morgan thought as he knelt down in front of the couch so their faces were level. Those beautifully long lashes, the pout on his face while he drifted between dreams and the lock of hair that fell loose and curled down over his eye... Morgan couldn’t resist any longer and gently kissed him awake.

“Hey, Morgs” Max whispered, eyes bleary as they inched open.

“Would you like a biscuit?”

“I’m really tired.” But Max’s hands were behind his head and Morgan closed his eyes as he felt Max’s tongue clear crumbs away from his lips. “Mmm, they’re good, though,” he said with a slight smile.

“You are really, really gross,” said Morgan, as he pushed Max onto his back and climbed him.

“Mmm,” Max said again, his hands on Morgan’s hips and at the back of his neck as they began to kiss again. Morgan kissed deeper, hands lost in his hair, and Max was pushing their bodies closer together and Morgan was finding it difficult to breathe-

“Can we move this to my room?” he asked, lips a gentle flutter against Max’s. And suddenly Max’s palms were on his chest and he had shoved him off and on to the floor.

“OW!” Morgan hurt enough already but nothing was piercing him as much as Max’s livid face... which was also kind of... frightened.

And then he realised why.

“Actually, I’m okay... really.” He pushed himself to his feet, and stroked Max’s face as he walked out into his room, picked the duvet off his bed and carried it back to the couch over his shoulders- switching off the light as he did.

“It’s because,” he said quietly, cocooning them both in the thick, soft material; binding them together so Max’s chest rested on his and their legs folded together, “of Wes. Isn’t it.”

Max ran two fingers along the curve of Morgan’s collar.

“He fucks you in there,” he rasped. “I didn’t think of it before but now... I can’t...”

Morgan couldn’t see him in the dark, but he felt him shaking.

“He’s my friend,” said Morgan, “one of my best.”

“I don’t. Fuck. Brice. Do I?”

“He knows what you mean to me,” Morgan let his lips brush Max’s cheek on his way to his ear, “he wouldn’t dare. Wes doesn’t.”

“If you let him...” Max’s nails pinched as they dug into his sides, “then- then I clearly don’t mean that much to you.”

“It didn’t start like that. He was trying to help me; I was missing you so much I was making myself sick. And I still miss you, a little, even though you’re here.” He let his arms fold around him as he pulled him tight. He was beginning to warm, half due to the warmth of the blanket, and another half due to their proximity.

“Wes, you... a good fuck,” Max spat, “... I can see how that would “help”.”

 _Why is he still here?_ Morgan wondered, _he’s so angry... but he’s still here. He’s still touching me, even though he’s repulsed. Why?_

“He’s my friend, and he thought he was doing what was best,” Okay, so that was a lie.

“Don’t give me that ‘just filling the hole’ crap, I hate it,” Max gasped, “I hate the image of you together in my head. Because... because I know it was more, Morgan. I know how he feels about you. It was _more_ , wasn’t it?”

Morgan’s heart thumped. “What do you mean?”

“Outside of bed, he... acted, like he wanted to be with you. Like you were together. Didn’t he?” Max wouldn’t look at him. “You did... things together. I bet he cooked for you. He cooked for you, didn’t he? Often.” Morgan squeezed him gently, trying to get him to stop more than to soothe him. “I bet there were days when the two of you never got out of bed.”

“Don’t, Maxou,” Morgan whispered, but Max kept going.

“I bet you watched hours of daytime television with his head in your lap. He’ll have perfected how to make coffee so you can stomach it by now. Sometimes, when he calls over, he’ll bring you groceries that he knows you’re missing from your fridge.” Max’s nails sunk into the skin of Morgan’s arm. “Fuck, I bet he’s even met your family. I know,” and Max’s teeth slowly skimmed his jaw as his voice got softer, “because I know those are the things that you always wanted from me, and I couldn’t give to you.”

“We were in Marcoussis... we couldn’t exactly _date_ , Max. I had you, and that was always more than enough. We couldn’t do any of that, because we were surrounded twenty-four, seven. That’s not what we are- we can’t be... I dunno... a _couple_. And I understand that, Maxou, I do.” Morgan swallowed. “Strings, no strings, I just want you.”

Max’s face was soft against his neck. “I know you, Morgan. I know you like he does. He may not look like the brightest but he knows how to get what he wants, and he had you all figured out. He got to you... because he gave you what he knew you were missing.”

“No, he didn’t, because I was missing you,” Morgan shot back.

“But I had told you,” Max’s voice was heavy, “I had told you a million, trillion times, that I loved you, and I wanted to be with you. But you’re not very good at being patient, and if I told you that I needed time to get used to the idea, I thought you’d panic. Because...” his hand stretched over Morgan’s shoulder and he didn’t finish.

Because Morgan was always so scared that this meant Max didn’t want him anymore.

Silently, he wished for Marcoussis again- that bliss that had been their eight weeks. Things had been so dismal in their game that they’d turned to each other and it became their relief, what they had was so different... it had made Morgan so stupidly happy.

“I wanted you forever,” was all he could say. “I still do.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“I wanted to take you away, remember?”

“In the event of New Zealand not happening for both of us, which is extremely unlikely. That’s not what you’re looking for, though. Morgan, you don’t want a desperate sex holiday. What you want is TIME. And when I live so far away, both of us working near-on six days a week- I can’t give you time. And I know you know you can’t expect me to.” Morgan pulled him closer; feeling the hair on Max’s lower stomach brush against his bellybutton, and suddenly Max’s mouth was at his. “But that doesn’t mean that you no longer want it, does it?”

“Why are you here, Max?” asked Morgan suddenly, just about stopping his eyes from narrowing accusingly. “Why did you come back?” Because he was right. He was grateful that Wes had done those things for him- that he had looked after him when he needed someone. Maybe that had been the reason Morgan had let him in.

It didn’t mean he loved him.

But Max... he was still here and still wrapped around him while... well, it was the strangest fight they’d ever had.

“I came back... to say goodbye. To end whatever it is that we are.”

Morgan tensed. “Oh.”

“You deserve someone better than... what I have to offer, I guess,” said Max, sadly. “I need time and your mind is always so made up about everything. And you need someone who’s like you, who knows what he wants, and it’s the same you do.” Max was shaking. “And I just... wanted to tell you that.”

“Oh,” Morgan said again.

It just seemed like a strange thing to say given... well, the compromising position that they were currently in.

“I... um... didn’t really plan to tell you like this,” said Max weakly. His face grew warm and Morgan felt it through his skin and it made him want to smile, even if he couldn’t quite manage it.

He’d expected Max to break things off, but not like... this. Not quite so calm. Not in a way that was quite so reasoned. He could handle yelling and slamming doors but reasoning... reasoning was harder.

It left him kind of in shock.

“I can’t do this anymore,” said Max quietly. “Not when something you did can hurt this much.”

Morgan couldn’t tell if his brain was over or under thinking the situation.

“Why are you still here?” he asked. “Why couldn’t you have told me this over the phone on your way back to Paris? Why did you have to be so... close?”

He reached for Max’s hand in the tangle of duvet.

“Why did you hold my hand when you fucked me?”

And Max began to cry, his other arm linking around Morgan’s back and squeezing him as he sobbed into his chest.

“I can’t let you go,” Morgan said stonily, “Because I love you. And even though you bring me all this grief I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I do care, about those other things. But you make me so complete... that it doesn’t matter. Oh, Max,” and for a second he lost his face in the smell of his hair, “you. Complete. Me.”

Max lifted his head and kissed him, filling Morgan’s mouth with wet and snot and tears. Morgan increased the pressure of his hand in Max’s.

“I think... I think I could let you go,” his voice cracked and he was glad Max couldn’t see his face in the dark, nor the flush from how very warm he was under their thick feathery layer. “I think I could let you leave me, and I promise that would be the end, if you told me that you don’t... love me. Anymore.” Even in the darkness he could see the shine of Max’s eyes as they widened.

Max hiccupped, and shook his head.

“You have to say it.”

Max freed his hand, and wound it up into Morgan’s hair, tugging. Morgan watched the shadow of his face as he took long, shuddering breaths. When he finally composed himself, he leaned forward to reach Morgan’s ear, and his tone was surprisingly strong and unwavering.

“One last fuck.” His spit wet Morgan’s ear. “I came back for one last fuck. A good, proper, fuck. And I got it.” He pulled sharply on Morgan’s hair and he had to bite his lip so he didn’t cry out. “That’s why I came back.”

Morgan pulled Max’s hand away by his wrist. “You held my hand,” he whispered back, trying to control the quiver in his voice, “while you were in me. You reached for it, you wanted my hand. And remember,” he brought it down and laid it on his waist, “how tight you held me afterwards? How you kissed me? You could have left me,” and at that he let their lips brush, “on the floor, full of your come, and just gone. But you didn’t. So, that wasn’t a fuck, Maxou. We... made love, didn’t we?”

And Max was crying again into his mouth as his kissed him, and as the duvet finally slid from around their shoulders he lifted his legs and wrapped them around Morgan’s waist.

“You’re so fucking... corny,” he sobbed. “Too bloody... fucking... corny. What an awful f-f-f-fucking line.” He hiccupped again, and started to laugh. Morgan dried Max’s face, clearing it with his hand while Max choked on his strange mixture of crying giggles, and smiled, sighing heavily with relief.

“I love you.”

Max stood up, pulling Morgan with him by the waist, “I love you, too.” His face was so full of the emotion that it beamed from his eyes and it made Morgan want to kiss him- everywhere, just so hard and so furiously- the expression he’d been living for ever since they’d first unceremoniously fallen into bed together. Morgan felt the tingle of bare skin when it rubbed against his stomach as Max stood on his toes to wrap his arms around his neck. “Always. Always, _always,_ ”Max finished, squeezing.


	6. Six

Max didn’t stir until late afternoon. The sun was shining through Morgan’s bedroom window and onto his leg, which was uncomfortably more warm than the rest of him.

Morgan was fast asleep beside him, his arm draped lazily over Max’s waist. Max moved closer and kissed him on his forehead, and he made a snuffling noise somewhere between a sigh and a snore. Max smiled at the small frown etched between his brows, as if he was suffering considerable stress in his dreams. Morgan’s resting face always wore that frown.

Max reached down to Morgan’s hips and slowly began to stroke him.

“Mmmm.... Maaax...” he mumbled, pushing his face into his pillow. Max could feel the smile growing across his own face as he kissed his mouth, and then wrapped his arms around Morgan’s head, pulling it into his chest.

“Maxou...” Morgan mumbled again, his arm tightening as Max began to twirl his hair around his fingers.

“Just checking,” Max whispered. Morgan’s hair was soft against his face.

He didn’t know what to do. He was still shaken by the events of the day before, but he didn’t think he could trade anything for the feeling of finally being able to hold Morgan like this again.

His stomach complained loudly and he sighed. He wanted to be here when Morgan woke up properly, he knew it would mean a lot to him if he was. But he had been sleeping so soundly. And Max was just so _hungry_.

Five minutes. Morgan’s fridge had to have _something_ edible.

He slid slowly out of the bed and laughed softly when he saw the giant Batman logo on the bedcovers.

Oh, Morgan.

In the living room he thrifted through the trail of clothes that led from the hallway and eventually found some pants.

He caught his reflection in the hall mirror as he straightened back up after retrieving his shirt. He watched his reflection trace lines between the dark stains on his shoulder that Morgan’s mouth had left behind, claiming him as his own. The image warmed the inside of Max’s stomach and he pushed the cool lick of panic that followed to one side, wincing. He hadn’t had fear about his feelings for Morgan like that since... well, he always had fear about his feelings for Morgan, but nothing this painful in a while.

 _He loves me. Only me. He does. He_ does.

Terror flickered in the eyes of his reflection and he swallowed, turning away to find something to distract himself. This was a different sort of fear.

Morgan’s fridge was a huge disappointment. Milk, one solitary egg, some butter. His cupboards were worse.

_No bread. No nothing._

Max had polished off the remainder of the biscuits but he was still hungry and his stomach complained for omelette. It chanted it at him as it gurgled. Omelette... with ham... and cheese... and some onion...

“Morgan,” he crawled back under the covers beside him, “Morrrgannnnn...” he tugged at his arm.

“Mmmh.” Morgan’s eyes didn’t open when he kissed him. “What?”

“You have no food.”

“Biscuits?”

“Gone. I want omelette.”

“There’s still an egg there somewhere.”

“That’s not enough.”

Morgan opened a bleary eye and looked at him. “Not enough? How many do you need?”

“Three... for the first one. Please, I am so. Hungry.”

Morgan cuddled closer. “Later. Can I just sleep with you a bit longer?”

“But I’m hungry _now_. And it’s three in the afternoon. Why don’t you have any food?”

Morgan mumbled something incoherent as he burrowed tighter into Max’s shirt. Max gave an impatient snort but he was already back asleep.

Max gave him a few minutes before he gently unhooked Morgan’s hands.

“I’m sorry, but I’m hungry.” He whispered as he bashed his lips against Morgan’s cheek.

In the hall he rooted around in his bag for his wallet and pulled his coat on. Just to the shop. There had to be one somewhere. A small one would even do it. Clermont wasn’t completely devoid of humanity.

Still...

He paused, and then scrambled back into the living room, stealing Morgan’s Yellow Pages from the top of the TV and the permanent marker beside it.

Feeling an incredible sense of déjà vu, he scribbed quickly: _I’m coming back, I promise. Please let me back in. M._

He sat for a beat, then quickly slotted in a “ _love_ ” in front of his initial, trying not to think too much about it.

As he opened the front door he unhooked one of Morgan’s scarves as they hung behind it, his smell making him feel light-headed as he wrapped it around his neck and stepped outside.

***

When Max came back the door was on a latch, but his mild worry disappeared when he found Morgan lying at the end of the bed curled around the message he’d left on the Yellow Pages.

He placed the plastic bag full of food on the floor beside the door and padded over to him, gingerly stroking his hair.

“Morgan,” he whispered, “I’m back.”

He leaned over and kissed him, and Morgan grumbled.

“You left me,” he whined. His hand reached out and grabbed Max’s jeans just behind his knee.

“Clearly not, since I am here. You really have to get over this abandonment complex.” He pressed his mouth into Morgan’s ear this time. “I love you,” he whispered.

Morgan pulled himself into a sitting position using Max’s jeans for leverage. He wrapped his arms around the back of Max’s thighs and pulled them towards him, snuggling into the base of Max’s stomach.

“Missed you,” he mumbled, squeezing.

Max ran two fingers down the back of Morgan’s neck and as far as he could down his exposed spine.

“No you didn’t,” he smiled when Morgan shivered at his touch, “you were asleep. On a book.”

“It has your love written on it,” whispered Morgan. He lifted his head so his chin rested at Max’s bellybutton and he could look straight up into his face. His eyes fluttered and he sighed softly when Max smoothed his other palm over his cheek.

“You were very silly leaving the door on the latch if you thought I’d left for good,” Max said, trying to be stern but smiling anyway. “You knew I’d come back.”

“Hmph,” Morgan grinned.

 _That face_. It pulled at Max’s heart. It was so wonderful and angular and his eyes creased and shone when they opened again and met Max’s.

“I saw David Skrela when I was out,” said Max, cautiously.

“Skrel?” Morgan’s voice brightened a bit.

“I think he saw me.”

“Super guy,” Morgan exhaled slowly and moved one of his hands up so it slid under Max’s shirt. “Lives,” his lips ran across skin, “around the corner. I babysit sometimes.”

“I think he saw me,” Max said again, the edge coming back into his voice.

Morgan sighed and sat back so he could look up at Max again.

“You,” he poked Max’s rib, and Max gave a small yelp and recoiled. “need to get over your paranoia.”

“But what if he...” Max trailed off.

“But what if he... didn’t recognise you?” said Morgan impatiently. “And if he did, what if you have relatives in Montferrand? Max... there’s no way he could know that you’re here for me.”

“I just... you know... I don’t...”

“I know you don’t.” Morgan reached behind Max’s thighs again and squeezed. “It’s okay. How many people know about us won’t affect how much I love you.”

Max chewed at his lip, suddenly anxious.

 _He does. He_ does.

Morgan pulled him close again. “Don’t do that,” he said, “you look so... cute when you bite your lip... like that.”

“Cute?” Max snorted as Morgan coloured. He titled Morgan’s jaw so he could lean down and catch his top lip with his teeth. He tugged gently and Morgan gave a strangled moan. When Max let go he leaned up to kiss him but, laughing, Max pulled his own lips out of reach.

“Why do you cause me so much pain?”

“You hungry, Morgs?”

Morgan’s eyes glinted. Max knew where this was going.

“What I meant was that I got stuff when I was-“Max couldn’t account for the choking noise he made as Morgan’s nose ran over the front of his jeans, across his zip.

“I’m starving,” Morgan muttered, and he bit down into the skin at Max’s hip as his fingers worked, sliding Max’s belt open, his zip, his button...

“Tease. _Cheese_ ,” Max stammered, “I got ch-cheese when I... Morgan, not now, I am actually really hun- _oh_.”

Max felt tongue and subconsciously sunk his hands into the hair at the back of Morgan’s head and gripped. Morgan’s lips stretched around him and Max began to grow weak watching his jaw tense, feeling the rub of Morgan’s tongue and the roof of his mouth as he sucked. He’d never watched Morgan’s mouth work him before like this and it was... it was...

His jaw went slack, and all sorts of sounds poured from it as his knees began to shake. His hands pushed Morgan’s head further, until he felt his nose against his skin, holding him there until fingers dug into his sides. His eyes began to slide closed and he struggled to keep them open- to watch the concentration on Morgan’s face, the slight smile he made at Max’s every gasp-

“Morgan...” he whimpered, “I...I...”

And Morgan let him go, tugging at Max instead with his hands, sliding over the wet his mouth had left behind, and his eyes closed as Max poured onto his face.

Max rested his knees on the end of the bed, pushing Morgan onto his back, spreading across his chest and shakily pressing into his neck.

Eventually his heart beat slowed and he was able to push himself onto his elbows.

“Idiot,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice steady as he covered his hand with his sleeve and began to clear Morgan’s face. “Now you’re just going to have to go hungry.”

Morgan smiled and licked his lips. “Leave those kind of lines for me.” He spluttered as he giggled and Max wrapped an arm around the back of his head and kissed him.

“It’s in your hair and everything,” he said breathlessly.

“I need a shower anyway,” Morgan kissed the broken ridge of Max’s nose. “You coming?”

“I don’t know if I could handle a... shower after that,” Max wrapped a second arm around the back of Morgan’s head, tilting it further off the sheets. “I’ve never... watched you... like that... before.” He swallowed.

“I can give you another demonstration?” Morgan had been reduced to his giddy state- this silly, floppy, almost useless, uncoordinated lump of being, the one that signalled he was happy. Really happy. Max both felt and heard Morgan’s stomach as it rumbled.

“My train’s in a few hours,” Max whispered between kisses, “and I honestly don’t want to be further from you than this until then.”

His heart thudded. Only a few more hours, and then no more of this: this wonderful thing that they had, none of these touches that made his heart race or giddy smiles that reduced him to a similar state. No more Morgan.

He didn’t know if he could do it.

Morgan’s giggles stopped and he pushed Max’s unruly hair off his face.

“Tell me you love me, Maxou,” he said, suddenly serious.

Max’s legs squeezed his sides and he nestled into the crook of Morgan’s neck. Morgan’s body pulsed in time with his own.

“I love you, Parra,” he breathed, “so much that I don’t know how I’m going to live without you.”

Morgan’s arms crossed behind Max’s back and tightened.

“Correct,” he said, and kissed the top of Max’s head through his hair. Max closed his eyes when he felt the angle of Morgan’s chin rest against his brow.

“Please stop worrying,” Morgan whispered sadly. Max’s only reaction was to cuddle further in against his warmth.


	7. Seven

“That...” Max began slowly as the end credits began to roll, “was _Top Chef_?”

Morgan leaned sideways, careful not to disturb the pillow on his knees that Max’s head rested on, and hit the “off” button on the remote.

“Last week’s rerun, but yep.”

“That programme is the one you guys talk about? _Incessantly_?” Max rolled on to his back and looked up at him.

Morgan frowned. “Yes? Why?”

Max reached up with one hand and playfully swatted at Morgan’s chin, smiling.

“Nothing.”

“No, _no_ \- I am taking personal offence to this. You didn’t like it?”

Max shrugged. “It was okay.” Morgan knew from Max’s smile that he was toying with him.

“I knew I should have had you watching it from the beginning.”

“Maybe I should have starred in it?”

“Not after that pancake you just made me.” That was a lie. Max’s pancakes were amazing. He’d clearly moved past oven pizza.

“Yeah, but you still ate it.”

Morgan rolled his eyes and bit back his grin. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did.” Max’s hand fell on Morgan’s as it rested on his stomach, stroking the edge of it slowly with his thumb and pushing it against the soft fabric of this clothes.

In a better world, Morgan mused, neither of them would be dressed right now. Max got shy when the sun came out, despite being glorious.

And, also, going to feed the neighbour’s cat in his jocks wouldn’t have been the greatest of ideas.

“What else do you whip up, Maxime?” He let his fingers slowly weave into Max’s hair.

“Sometimes,” Max’s eyes closed, “on special occasions, I’ll put on oven chips to go with my pizza.”

“Nice.” Max’s hair was still damp at the base, cool against Morgan’s skin.

“Your hair’s still wet.”

“I can’t believe that you don’t own a hair dryer.”

“I can’t believe that you _do_.”

Max’s hand squeezed his. “Remember that time you came over? That time... when we had that day off... in Paris... and I took you home with me?”

Morgan laughed. That had been a very good day.

“You chased me around your apartment with your hair dryer.”

“It wasn’t going to bite.”

“Well, I wasn’t so sure at the time.”

Morgan’s hand squeezed back softly. That day Max had brought him back to where it had all started. His teeny-tiny apartment, that barely fit one. With his coffeemaker that he’d introduced to Morgan as though it was a person; his most prized possession. He had a wardrobe now, for his clothes. It was another shade of blue, in keeping with everything else.

Max had opened the shutters, filling the room with wonderfully soft light. They moved the armchair beside the window, and they’d both curled up on it, pressing together. Morgan holding him while Max talked and talked about his home in the south and his brothers and his friends from university and having his family so close and how much he missed them while the rain had lashed against the glass.

Morgan had listened, not so much taking in his every word but how he said them. Taking in the tremble of Max’s body when he laughed so hard into Morgan’s chest that he would fail to deliver the punch line of the story. He’d learned that day how many breaks it had taken Max’s nose to finally settle in that wonderfully crooked way. He’d learned that day how much he felt for Max; really felt, past the lust and infatuation- something a lot deeper, something powerful. Something a lot more beautiful than anything he’d ever felt for anyone before. And he’d been sure to show it- after Max had led him to his bed and they’d lost themselves in the blue.

“That was the first day I told you that I loved you,” said Max, his eyes opening again. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Morgan smirked, “I remember.”

Max laughed and swatted at Morgan’s face again.

“I’ll leave you with that... memory,” he sat up and his hand slid along Morgan’s jaw when he kissed him, “and I am going to clean up after those pancakes.”

“You already cleaned, other things,” Morgan exaggerated the whine and trapped Max’s torso where it twisted away from him. “They’re just plates.”

“It’ll take me a minute to clean both of these. Tops.” But Max’s second kiss was longer; Morgan smiled and wrapped his arms around Max’s neck. He closed his eyes as he felt Max rearrange himself on his lap, the muscles in his legs tensing against his.

“Speaking of _tops_ ,” he whispered into Max’s cheek, feeling the rumble of Max’s stomach as he chuckled, his lips raining kisses on Morgan’s face, the firm bulge in his jeans pressing against his own. “Not again. You weigh a ton.”

Max’s nose traced the features of Morgan’s face, his jaw, stopping at his mouth. Morgan swallowed, his chest pounding hard.

“That day in my apartment. What you did to me... on my bed.” Max’s breath caught in his throat, and his hands ran down over Morgan’s ribs. “It was... it was, _wow_.”

Morgan’s hand reached for Max’s and he guided it the rest of the way down his body, past his hips, under the elastic; loosening his jeans so Max could grasp him fully. His other hand was around Max’s neck, tensing when he felt teeth.

Morgan’s head was suddenly filled with Max’s climax face. Lying back on his bed and framed by his hair and the blue of his sheets, his eyes screwing up as he moaned and the definition of the muscles in his body as he tensed, shining with sweat. Freeing his hand to touch that most perfect part of himself as it lay hard on his stomach.

Max’s fingers were cool when they touched him in the present and he sighed.

Morgan still remembered Max’s quiet whispers in his ear when it was over, the memory still made his stomach twist.

“ _I love you, Morgan. Oh God, oh_ God _, I love you._ ”

Morgan took in a deep, shaking breath.  Max’s fingers pulled and Morgan whimpered, pulling Max closer with his arms and burying into his shoulder. Max’s neck scratched against his temple.

“You’d never screwed me like that before. You made me come so hard it almost sent me into a coma.”

Morgan clawed at Max’s back as he tried to control his ragged breathing. “Funny.”

Max sat back, the rhythm of his hand increasing. His other hand pushed against Morgan’s shoulder, pushing him off him. Morgan’s eyes opened again and he saw Max’s face- that beautiful face- wide with a smile.

“I like this,” he was saying softly.

“Like what?” Morgan lunged forward to kiss him, to grab that part of Max’s lower lip that was stained by a freckle- but Max pushed him away again, and his grip tightened on Morgan’s groin.

“Me...” he whispered, “me watching you.” His eyes glinted. “Tell me,” his voice lowered to an almost-growl. “Tell me you like it.” Max’s hand slid down Morgan’s shoulder and agonizingly swept across his torso, joining his other as it handled him in all the right places.

Morgan’s throat rattled as he tried to answer. “When did you get so good at this?”

Max leaned forward and pressed their noses together. “Practice.” Morgan swallowed and Max pushed against his cheek. “Some nights were so long. And that bed was a constant reminder of what you could do to me.” His voice was barely a breath as he pressed his mouth against Morgan’s ear.

Morgan’s entire body pounded. Max was never like this. Max never talked to him like this. This wasn’t like Max at all- Max was quiet and compliant and sweet and soft... or had always been.

Until last night. He’d seen flashes of this Max last night. Who took control and pushed him to the floor and who had torn him apart. A Max who had pulled at his hair after and told him it had all been a meaningless fuck.

It had hurt- the physicality but also the attempts to break Morgan’s heart. So... why was it so... _erotic_? He had always loved Max’s bites, but Max like this made his insides constrict, and even now this torment was as arousing as it was painful.

Max held all the strings.

“Practice?” Morgan wheezed. Max’s teeth closed around Morgan’s ear and he tugged.

“It got very... lonely, in that bed.” Max’s hand slowed agonizingly and Morgan moaned. “I missed you.”

“Missed... me?”Morgan swallowed lungfuls of air. He had been nearly there, Max was drawing out the process, making him squirm so horribly and on purpose.

“So much. Every night.” He slowly chewed at the soft skin behind Morgan’s ear and down his neck, creating a burning trail over Morgan’s shoulder.

“Ohhhh...”

“Do you want to know how?” Max’s hand began to pick up pace again. His words were torture.

“Yes.”

“Ask nicely.”

“ _Please_.” Morgan’s body was screaming. Max. He needed him. To hold him and feel him and push against him until their bodies shifted as one and Max made wonderful sounds that were all Morgan’s doing.

“Like you want it. Like you want me to tell you what my hands have to do... to make up for your absence.”

Morgan was so close that he could barely speak, and Max was kissing him and his lips were incredible and forcing his mouth open-

And then the weight of Max was off him, he had let him go, Morgan’s eyes flew open and it was like a different Max was suddenly crouched beside him on the sofa.

“Your front door,” he hissed, “someone just came in your front door.”

Morgan was struggling to get his breath back and he pushed into the fabric of Max’s shoulder, panting, the sensation still not quite gone from the base of his stomach. “I love you,” he moaned, “Oh _Max_...”

“I’m not kidding, it just slammed, _shit_ Morgan,” in a frenzy he was pulling Morgan’s jeans back up his thighs.

“You ‘magined it,” sighed Morgan, wrapping his arm clumsily around Max’s waist and banging his lips off his cheek. His Maxime. Beautiful Maxime. _His Maxime_.”You’re so _pretty._ ”

Max shoved with what must of been all his might and Morgan fell sideways, slamming into the arm at the opposite end of the couch.

It stung. Not just the fact that he’d smacked his neck awkwardly, which hurt, a lot; but Max pushing him away. Just because someone might see. While he was letting him know how much he meant to him.

After what they had just been doing.

“What the fuck, Max?” he snarled, rubbing his neck. “There can’t be anyone breaking in, we would have heard. And only some of the guys have my keys, for emergencies-

“By that, you mean-“, Max stopped short, paling.

Morgan forgot about his sore neck as it snapped around.

“Wes!” he exclaimed, surprised. “What are you doing here? What... happened?” Wes had paused just at the door frame out into the hall, looking unsure- the hood was up on his jacket and he was wrapped up in a very woolly scarf. But that wasn’t to what Morgan was enquiring- a white cast covered Wesley’s nose, the tape securing it spread over his cheeks. Deep bruising darkened the area under his eyes and his expression looked sort of like it did after too much brandy.

Brandy never went down well. In fact, generally, it never stayed down.

Wes’s eyes swept across the living room- thanks to Max, it was abnormally tidy- and over the two of them, Morgan knew he was seeing Max’s splayed hair and the bite marks on Morgan’s neck and very quickly putting two and two together.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, slowly, holding up a plastic bag. Morgan recognized the logo of his favourite Chinese. His voice was nasally and congested. “I got us dinner, but... I didn’t realise that you still had company. I’ll go,” he said dejectedly, placing it on the floor, “there’s enough for two.”

He was regretting more and more his decision to not tell Wes about Max in Biarritz. Or, ever.

“No, Wes, _wait_ ” without thinking about it, Morgan had lifted himself from the couch and had taken the few steps between them. He reached up on touched the cast on his face. “Who did this to you? Are you okay?”

Behind him Max made a noise that wasn’t unlike that of a cornered feline and his hand quickly dropped back to his side.

Wes’s eyes flashed in Max’s direction. “It’s nothing. I was asking for it.”

“What is going on?” Morgan asked softly. “I’m your best friend. You probably _should_ tell me. What have you got yourself messed up in this time?” Wes had never been hurt this bad outside of rugby. He’d had a few scrapes, normally when drunk, but someone had really pounded him this time. No one should have been allowed to mess up such a pretty face.

He knew better than to say that out loud.

Wes looked at him for a second with his huge eyes peeking out from under his hood. They stretched even larger than Max’s when he played innocent. “Can we talk?” he asked eventually.

Morgan bit his lip. Maybe Wes did just want to talk.

“You can tell me-”

“Alone?” he added, tentatively.

He had almost forgotten Max.

Morgan swallowed and placed a hand on Wes’ arm. “Wait for me downstairs, okay?”

He turned around when Wes was through the door to find Max, standing not too far behind him, his lips set in a thin line.

“Max,” he began, and next thing Max was wrapped around him, squeezing. Morgan sighed and held him tight. Hair filled his nose.

“You have to let me go.”

Max’s arms only jerked tighter.

“How about... you leave, and I won’t be here when you get back.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Want to test it?”

“He’s my best friend and he’s really hurting.”

“No.” Max’s voice was muffled as he burrowed deeper into Morgan’s neck.

“You’d let me go if it was Brice.”

“That still doesn’t mean I have to be comfortable with it.”

“You can’t stop me from seeing him, Max.” The muscles in his arms were so tense they were cutting into him. “We live here. We work together. We’re on the same team; we have all the same friends.”

“He’ll be here tomorrow. I won’t. I don’t want him to take any more of our time away from us.”

“Maxou,” he said, “someone has really hurt him. I at least need to know what happened.”

“How about...” Max planted a firm kiss on his mouth. “No.”

Morgan let him go and took a step back.

“What is wrong with you?” He asked, “When did you start getting so... insensitive?”

“ _Insensitive?_ ” Max cocked his head to one side.

“Yeah,” Morgan said boldly, “first, do you realise how much it hurts when you push me away like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like whenever there’s a chance someone might see us together. It really... it’s like you care more about what they think than you care about _me._ ” he swallowed. “It makes me feel like some day you’ll just drop me, exactly like that.”

Max’s forced laugh stuck in his throat. “Morgan-“

“Second,” Morgan could hear his voice getting louder as he cut across him, “he,” and he pointed in the direction of the front door, “looked after me because _you weren’t here_. He was there for me every, single, stupid, painful day that you weren’t. And I owe him for that. In a way I _love him_ for that.”

Max’s eyes had widened to about four times their original size.

Too late. Morgan realised what he’d said and there was nothing he could do about it.

_No- Max- that’s not what I meant- not even a little bit-_

“We both know why I couldn’t be there for you.” He looked hurt, really hurt and it was like a severe laceration in Morgan’s chest, but he kept going anyway.

“And all that time he was so good to me and he never knew about you; he was never _ever_ going to be able to compete with you. I have to explain. I also have to find out...” He ran out of words and instead placed his hands over his nose.

“Oh?” Max hissed, “So you can what?”

“Break them,” Morgan growled and Max’s eyes narrowed.

“Good,” he said dangerously, “Because you’re looking at him.”

Morgan stopped short and shook his head. “What?”

“I did that. Ask him,” Max’s voice was shrill, “and he’ll tell you.”

Morgan was mouthing wordlessly, suddenly finding his hands supporting the back of his head. Max... did that to Wes? What? How? _When?_

“Why?” he asked eventually.

“WHY?” Max was yelling, incredulous. “I was fucking furious. I come all the way down here to find you’d _knifed_ me like you had... and he was waiting for me outside and all I could see was the guy who replaced me and...” his voice cracked, “I wanted to _kill_ him.”

Morgan wandered back over to the couch and sat down.

“He could be out for _weeks_ ,” was all he could say. “And we really need him for the semis.”

“ _That_ ’s all you can think about?” Max was flabbergasted.

“Wait, no, it’s not,“ Morgan took a deep breath, “why was he waiting for you?”

“He figured us out,” said Max quietly, “he followed me to the station even though I’d nearly knocked him out, and begged me to go back to you.”

“So that’s why you came back?”

“I didn’t come back to forgive you, remember? I came back to leave you.”

Morgan stopped for a second, slightly alarmed by the sincerity in Max’s voice when he said that.

“Would you have come back at all if he hadn’t suggested it?”

“I don’t know. Probably not,” Max admitted, sitting down beside him, breathing in slowly- calm.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

Max reached for Morgan’s opposite hand as it massaged his temple and brought it to his lap, squeezing it. “I don’t know. I just didn’t. Today I was just so happy to be back with you. And I have a feeling that he’s not quite ready to let you go like that, that’s why he’s here.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I would have thought him begging you to come back to me was proof enough that what we were doing didn’t mean anything.”

Max moved in closer and warily kissed the skin just at Morgan’s brow. “Stuff like that... it’s never meaningless.”

Morgan knew what Max meant by “stuff”. He meant a drunk kiss on the floor of a club bathroom.

Morgan smiled, lifted his arm around his neck and hugged him close. “But with you, I just _knew_. I knew from the moment you kissed me. I mean,” and he pressed their lips together, the catch in his chest as he did so was familiar now but still there. “That,” he said, and he lifted Max’s hand, spreading it over his heart as it drubbed deafeningly at Max’s touch and he kissed him again for good measure. “Feel that?” Max’s eyes were locked on Morgan’s as his fingers spread out further and pressed against his skin. “I never get that with him.”

“Then you should be staying with me, without me even having to ask you.” Max said. “I’m not trying to stop you from seeing him... it’s just until I go.”

“It’s not that,” Morgan sighed, stroking Max’s hair and letting his fingers run along the base of his jaw. “He’s alone, he’s upset. I have so much explaining to do- but he needs some to let him know that they care that he’s a mess.” He kissed Max’s forehead. “You know he could never be you, he could never be my Maxou.”

He wrapped his other arm around Max and pulled him close, and took Max’s lack of protest as a sign of victory.

“You’re so nice,” Max mewed, stroking his chest.

Morgan laughed. “That’s not what Brice said.”

“Brice?”

“I rang him last night,” He was playing with tufts of Max’s hair again and feeling him snuggle closer. “After you left. I wanted to know how I could get you back.”

“And...?”

“He called me lots of things. ‘Nice’ wasn’t one of them. And then he hung up.”

“He would. Although,” Max sighed, “we have to find a way to straighten ourselves out without dragging him into it all the time.”

“He loves it though.”

“He really does, doesn’t he? And you didn’t even live with him for two years. He literally goes looking for other people’s problems to solve.”

“Maybe that’s why he set us up.”

Max raised his head a smiled widely at him. “On the train home I’ll text him and let him know we’re okay. He’ll be furious.”

“We’re okay,” Morgan pushed Max’s hair from his face. Hearing Max confirm it was exhilarating. “I can’t believe you thought I could replace you.”

“I dunno,” Max rested his lips against the side of his mouth. “My hands were getting pretty good, actually. At...” he jerked his head, “ _you know_...”

“Can we make a rule that you don’t do that?” Morgan complained. “At least, when I’m not there to watch.”

They sat like that for a few more long seconds.

“Can I at least go down stairs and... tell Wes that I’ll see him tomorrow?” Morgan blurted.

Max bit his lip, his smile gone.

“I promise,” Morgan said, “that I will come straight back up. And then we are going to have the most amazing goodbye sex.”

“Only,” he ran and finger along the curve of Morgan’s bottom lip, “if you fuck me to unconsciousness. Do we have a deal?”

***

Wes was waiting for him in the main hall of the building.

 “Hey,” he panted, “take the hood down, man. You look like you’re going to mug me.”

“I think I’d look like that either way. The cast makes me look a bit Hannibal Lector, don’t you think?” Wes smiled slightly as he pulled down his hood.

“We have five minutes,” added Morgan, hurriedly.

“He won’t let you see me?” Morgan shook his head. “Okay.” Wes looked up the stairs behind him, as if he expected to see Max at the top. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” his voice lowered to a hiss as he took several quick steps in Morgan’s direction. “What were we even doing?”

“I know, I know, I am so sorry. I royally screwed up,” Morgan said desperately, “and I nearly lost him because of it. And please, I can’t lose you too.”

Wes opened his mouth to speak.

“That means,” Morgan continued, “that I can’t see you like I was. But you’re my best friend, Wes. I need you.”

Wes shoved his hands in his pockets and sucked his teeth.

“Do you know how many people I’ve been with since the Six Nations?” Wes asked. “Including when I was drunk? How many I... How many I _wanted_?”

Morgan shook his head.

“One,” he spat. “You, Morgan.”

“I am so sorry, Wes.” He swallowed. “But I owe you. I owe you so much. Without you I mightn’t have got him back.”

Wes cast his eyes down and sighed.

Max’s words were running through his head. _Stuff like that... it’s never meaningless_.

“I’m sorry,” he said again quietly. “But he is so important to me.”

Wes snorted. With his blocked nose it sounded sort of like a car backfiring. “I’m not important to you?”

“Don’t do this. You know you are.”

“Do you...” he shifted from foot to foot. “Do you _love_ him?” The tone was mocking, and Morgan resented it.

“Grow up, Wes. That’s none of your business,” he snapped.

“ _My_ business?” His sarcastic laugh bounced off the wall as he threw his head back. “I would have thought it was very much my business.” Wes snorted again and kicked at an imaginary stone on the ground.

_That hurt, Wes._

“I’d give up my career for him,” said Morgan after a pause.

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because he’d never ask, and he wouldn’t let me. And he could never give up his, he’s worked too hard.” Not that it had ever come up in conversation.

“And like the rest of us haven’t? I would...” Wes swallowed, and didn’t finish. He looked up, straight at Morgan, making him feel sick with the reverence in his eyes. “So how come I have to be mixed up in all this? How come I get to be stuck in the middle?” He shook his head. “If that’s how you feel, why the hell do you keep coming after me?”

“After you? What? What are you talking about?”

“He told me, last night. He said you were together, right? So why did you let me in like you did? And I know, because I have a fractured ethmoid to prove it, that he didn’t willingly let you down here.”

Morgan frowned.

“I’m here because I was worried about you, because you’re my friend.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Max had been right. Wesley wasn’t willing to let go.

“Look, it’s just...” Wes bit his lip. His teeth were very white against his skin.

“He knows I’m here, he let me come. He said we... me and him... we’re okay.”

“I can love you, though” Wes was whispering, his tone suddenly desperate, “I can love you, like he does, like that. If you’d let me. Does that matter?”

Morgan had never heard him use that tone before. Well, maybe when a bartender was blatantly lying that they were out of Jameson.

“Don’t,” he sighed, suddenly exhausted. “You don’t. I do love you, Wes, just not like that.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me about him? I don’t understand. I would have... stopped.” Wes swallowed.

“At the time I wasn’t really... working. I missed him too much and you were always, just, um...” he replied feebly, shrugging, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

They both broke into sheepish grins.

Wes’s mouth was much nicer when it was widened with his smile. “Tears weren’t a normal reaction to what I was doing to you. Trust me.”

Morgan smiled back and laughed without really meaning to.

“I didn’t mean for... things... to go so far,” he was saying. Wes was so nice. The door was open and his aftershave was wafting across the hallway. It reminded him of lazy Sundays. “But... I really...”

_Love him. I really love him._

Wes’s grin faded. “Did it mean anything to you? Because-”

Morgan cut across him. “You were a friend when I needed you to be. But-”

“- it meant something to me,” his voice trembled slightly when he finished.

Morgan could feel the colour drain from his face and he didn’t answer. He couldn’t give an answer, because it wasn’t the right one.

 “Okay,” Wes cleared his throat, eventually. “I get it. It’s... fine.”

“Don’t be an idiot, of course it isn’t fine.” Morgan found his voice.

“Really. It’s fine.” Wes looked anything but _fine_ as he turned around and pushed out the front door.

 _Oh man_ , Morgan thought, _this is just a recipe for him to go and do something really stupid._ Praying that Wes wouldn’t go far, he pushed open the door and ran down the street after him.

He caught up with him in the park.

The hood, scarf, and turned-up-collar combination was an odd one and it made Wes look somewhere between mournful and loitering youth.

“I’m not crying,” Wes snivelled, turning his head away from Morgan when he sat down at the other end of the bench.

“I’m sorry,” Morgan said again.

Wes sniffed, and swore, pressing his fingers onto his cast.

“Fucking nose,” he muttered.

“What do you want me to say?” asked Morgan suddenly. “Why did you even come over right after you’d sent him back? Why didn’t you come over _instead_ of sending him back? Wait.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why would you even send him back if _that’s_ what you want?”  

“I’d thought he’d be gone by now, that’s why I came by. I’m sorry.” Wes’s apology was quiet.

“Gone?” Then he remembered Max’s pre-coital intentions. “Oh. But then why would it matter if- oh. _Oh_.” He slumped back against the bench. _“Why?_ Why would you take that risk? _”_

Wes turned around to look at him and bit his lip. “I saw what he meant to you and I just thought... you might like the comfort. That’s all.”

The comfort. Yeah, right. Something about the way Wes was willing to make him and Max fight just so he could get sex out of it sickened Morgan’s stomach slightly.

“I can’t believe you’d think like that.”

Although it was probably pittance compared to the situation he’d put Wes _and_ Max in.

“But its okay now, _you_ ,” Morgan knew that reference was for the entity and not just himself, “are okay now.” Wes failed to hide the bitterness in his voice.

“What if he’d-,” Morgan swallowed, “ _left_. Really left, like he was threatening to. Wes, I... I don’t think I could deal with that.”

“I was _there_ when he wasn’t. And you were fine, when you were with me.”

“You call that _fine?-“_

 _“Jesus_ , Morgan!” It was Wes’s turn to snap. “I didn’t want that, okay? He wasn’t going to leave you. Even I could see that.”

Morgan slumped back against the bench again, slient. He was too distraught to be pleased with that last admission.

“I was,” Wes began after several seconds of silence, “thinking. After. Maybe... if things worked out and after _he_ went home... there was no real reason that _we_ couldn’t, y’know, continue.” When Morgan looked at him Wes was staring wistfully into the distance.

“Max doesn’t share,” said Morgan dully. “He doesn’t strike me as being too keen on the idea.”

 _What am I_ saying _?_

“ _I’m_ not too keen on the idea.”

“He doesn’t have to know,” Wes’s voice suddenly brightened as he shifted around on the seat so he faced Morgan. “I was in the hospital and I was thinking-“

“-the _hospital_? Oh _Jesus_ -“

“- about what it was like to, I dunno, be with you I guess. And I had been ready to give up when I saw how much you’d hurt him. Because I didn’t want to be in the middle of that. But then I began to think of how... when you were with me, you didn’t think about him and it _fixed_ you.” Wes’s words were tripping over each other in his excitement.

It suddenly struck Morgan that this was the real reason he’d come over.

“What if I don’t want to be shared?” said Morgan angrily.

“No, but-“

“ _No_.”

“He doesn’t have to know. Think about it-“

“Wes, _please_.”

“You were so much _better_ when you were with me. You _were_.” Wes didn’t wait for an answer and reached forward with his arm to rest it on Morgan’s.

Morgan watched Wes’ dark fingers sink into the fabric of his top and felt their slight pressure on his skin. When he closed his eyes to think the light reflecting off the silver rings that embellished them echoed under his eyelids.

What a mess. He would open his eyes, and Wes would be there, watching him, waiting on his reaction.

And Max. Max was at home, waiting for him. How long had he been waiting?

Max hadn’t been right this morning, he’d felt it. He didn’t blame him, not one little bit, but Max was paranoid enough as it was...

 Morgan’s heart thumped.

_Shit._

Despite everything Max had said before he left, he had the horrible feeling that if he was gone long enough Max wouldn’t be there when he got back.

He yelped and opened his eyes. Max was more important, much more important.

“I have to go,” he spluttered, tipping backwards out of range Wes’s touch and almost falling unceremoniously off the bench. As soon as he was on his feet, he broke into a run. 


	8. Eight

If Wesley Fofana had ever found himself in the position where he’d have to describe himself, he would probably fallen on the word grouping of “a good guy”.

It’s what everyone wants to be seen as, after all.

A Good Guy. You know. The one who helps you move house. Reminds you of important calendar dates. Always brings an extra pair of boots for away games because someone usually forgets. Feeds your goldfish when you’re on holiday.

 Convinces the guy who is not actually your ex and very much the opposite that fucking you meant nothing, when it meant everything. Unable to keep his own promise of letting you go.

Ruining everything.

 _I am an asshole_ , Wes thought dully, as this realisation suddenly dawned on him, seeing the panic widening Morgan’s eyes.

He knew that in the past he hadn’t exactly been nun material, and at the beginning he’d only seen this being very, very casual- but being with Morgan had been like coming home. So safe, so familiar. Coming back to the same person every night and actually knowing the intricacies of their body had been new and fascinating.

But then Max had arrived. And Wes had quickly come to realise what was wrong with his friend. And then he’d done what had to be done without thinking about it- Morgan had been more together in those thirty seconds that Max had been in the room than he had since the end of the internationals, and despite the possible repercussions, Wes missed his friend.

 But this was twice now. Twice when he really hadn’t wanted to. The second time in twenty four hours when Morgan had told him in not so many words that Max would always come first.

It was horrible. It felt gross. Sickening. He had always cared about Morgan and whatever way that had manifested itself it led Wes to always want to protect him.

And was it bad to think that maybe being there for Morgan all this time entitled him to _more?_

Because here Max was. In the train station once again.

Leaving Morgan once again.

Glaring at the two of them with this odd mixture of terror and fury.

Wes just refused to believe that this was the same person who had reduced Morgan to such a state.

 _He is cute, in a way_. Wes thought, cocking his head slightly. _If you like fluffy little bunny rabbits._

_Besides, Morgan would be currently sobbing on his kitchen floor if it weren’t for me convincing him to come after you._

“Maxou…” Morgan broke the silence.

“You were longer than five minutes,” Max spoke with a snarl.

Wes had a feeling that this had everything and nothing to do with him at the same time.

Train stations didn’t change much in twenty-four hours. The same clerk was at the ticket desk that had called a taxi for him and had offered Wes the rest of his Kleenex. That homeless guy was in exactly the same position on that bench. Wes casually wondered if maybe he was dead.

Morgan sighed heavily. Max’s bag slid off his shoulder and on to the floor, and Morgan shook his head sadly before he walked across the linoleum.

It wasn’t a hug. Morgan was holding Max together, delicately, in his arms; like he was something precious that was in danger of shattering into a million pieces.  Wes couldn’t see through Morgan’s back, but he saw Max- saw Max’s face crumple, like it was the only thing that he wanted at that moment and that’s why it hurt, just before he was enveloped by Morgan’s coat. He could tell by how his hair sat on Morgan’s shoulder as they fitted together that he was curled up against his chest, his head tilting so it rested against Morgan’s neck- a neck Wes had been tenderly exploring only days before.

_And it had meant nothing to him._

The crippling wave of cold jealousy hit Wes maybe several seconds later and his legs shook from the impact.

 _He never held me like that_.

He had never held Wes at all. Wes had done all of that: sought the attention, followed him home, offered the comfort, went looking for some of Morgan in the middle of the night to curl around. It had never occurred to him that Morgan could do it back.

Morgan just hadn’t wanted to.

He wanted to stop looking- he didn’t want to watch their bodies move like a well oiled machine, wrapping around each other, so close together; he couldn’t help but be reminded of the satisfaction of finding and fitting together the first two pieces in a several thousand piece jigsaw puzzle- but when he closed his eyes the image was seared against the inside of his lids.

 _Am I just a giant dickhead? Or is Morgan?_ He wondered suddenly. Morgan could have warned him a little bit better than he had. The occasional, “don’t get too attached”- whatever. He had meant it when he said if Morgan had been clear from the start maybe this may not have escalated as it had.

And that is what had made him think. Wes may have started it but Morgan always kissed back. Sex had taken more time but Wes had let him take it- it had been strange, after all: having someone in his life with such intimacy on such a regular basis. He’d had his relationships, sure, but if he’d been smitten by Morgan before it was nothing compared to the feelings that filled him when, half-asleep, Morgan would nuzzle up against him in the mornings. There had even been a night after a certain Heineken Cup semi final where Morgan had gone down on him and when Wes came he’d smothered his screams with his dinner jacket.

Wes this morning had woken up determined not to be cast aside in such a manner, to fight for feelings that he thought after all that must be in Morgan still, deep down. But now, watching the two of them embrace, he realized that unless these feelings were very, very, very, Marianas Trench kind of deep, there wasn’t even a war to be fought.

The announcement about a train to Paris registered in his ears and he opened his eyes again almost by accident.

Max had taken several steps back, but Morgan’s hand still rested high on his waist. Max was talking, whispering, frantic.

 _Turn around Morgan, so I can see your face. So I can see what you’re thinking_.

Max had very wide eyes. Very wide, shiny eyes, that drank Morgan in. His lips were moving, Wes was too far away to hear it, and his eyes were darting all over Morgan’s face as their conversation grew more heated.

Morgan’s hand closed tighter around Max’s coat. Wes could see the whites of his knuckles before Max’s hand covered them. Softly, reassuring. He paused and, faster than Wes’s brain could register, leaned in and took Morgan’s mouth tenderly with his own.

Wes jolted and looked around. How could no one have noticed that? A train station at rush hour and people still walked past without noting this… kiss.  It had lasted the briefest of seconds but it said everything and even when it finished he could feel the aftershock of affection as it radiated towards him.

It wasn’t like he didn’t already know it, though.

He was beginning to forgive the punch in the face, bit by bit.

_What have I done?_

Wes suddenly felt even more ill. He swayed on the spot and turned on his heel to leave.

He had grand designs on making sure that he would never see either of them again but his shaking knees only got him as far as the side of the nearest ticket machine.

He rested his forehead and his palms against the cool plastic, feeling it slightly through his cast.

What the hell had Morgan been playing at with both of them?

The kiss replayed in slow motion in his head even though he didn’t want it to. Again and again. Max lifting a hand to gently rest against Morgan’s cheek, almost to steady himself, lips moving… wait.

Lip reading wasn’t in Wes’s skill set, but he had been focusing so hard on the adoration pouring from every faucet of Max’s body that he had failed to take in what his mouth was blatantly saying.

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Goodbye.”_

He pushed himself off the ticket machine and swung around.

Morgan was sitting on his own on a bench- the same bench Max had sat on a mere day before and had poured his heart out- his head in his knees- the same way Max had sat.

But he was alone.


	9. Nine

Wes had followed Morgan home. After he’d sat beside Morgan on the bench, and Morgan had leaned into him. And when Wes had put his arms around him Morgan had buried into his chest, as far as he could possibly go, his breath rattling, his nails digging into Wes’s skin through his layers.

He hadn’t been left with much of a choice. Whenever Morgan needed him Wes would always be there.

 “Are you hungry?”

Wes had opened the front door with his key, letting Morgan through.

Morgan didn’t answer and out of habit more than anything Wes hung his hoodie up behind the door.

“Shame to let good chow mein go to waste, eh?”

When he reached the living room Morgan was curled up on the couch, his eyes closed.

He looked desolate.

 _Did he leave him or did he…_ leave _him?_

The thought suddenly struck him. What if that hadn’t been a “see you later” but an actual, proper, “we’re over”? It wasn’t the right time to ask, probably, but the thought made his heart beat faster.

Did he have Morgan all to himself now?

He picked up the bag of cold Chinese on his way into the kitchen and set it on the counter.

 _No. He’s not mine to take_.

Max loved Morgan. Really, really, loved Morgan. He’d choked it out to Wes before but Wes just hadn’t realized how much until he’d seen that kiss. Morgan had said he would break if Max ever left him but it was blatantly obvious that the opposite would have a much more devastating effect.

He weighed up the plastic containers and wondered would it be rude this time to take the meal that felt like it had more.

“I’m heating yours first,” he raised his voice so Morgan would hear him in the sitting room.

Did Wes look like that, like everything he would ever need was right there in front of his eyes, when he looked at Morgan? How did Max feel, when he woke up next to him? Was it just that bit _more_ than what Wes felt?

He found two plates drying beside the sink and set them down in front of the microwave to spoon food on to them.

He hadn’t realized that Morgan had followed him in until he felt the pressure at his back.

“Hi,” he whispered quietly.

Morgan’s chest pressed against his spine as he leaned on him from behind. Wes took a deep breath before he clicked open the microwave.

“Would you like it a two minute kind of warm or a three minute roasting?” he asked. Morgan didn’t answer. Wes felt the grit of his cheek rub into the nape of his neck.

This was torture and Morgan must have known it. Wes breathed in deeply again, trying to calm certain parts of his body that were urging, no, screaming for actions that would be very inappropriate. He slammed the microwave door shut a little harder than he meant to.

“Thank you,” Morgan whispered, hoarse.

 _Well you would have done it for me… oh, no, you wouldn’t_.

They stood in silence for a while, Wes watching the clock on the microwave count down and the only sound was its gentle hum.

Morgan suddenly became heavier, and Wes had to push against the counter to keep himself upright.

“Is everything okay?” He asked.

Morgan said nothing, but his hands locked around Wes’s front, crossed over his chest, and he squeezed. Wes put a hand on Morgan’s to steady himself, to steady both of them, trying to remember to breathe.

“You’ve changed your tune since this morning.”

This is how it would start. Touches that lasted slightly too long. Tracing circles on skin with soft fingertips. Brushing lips against those sensitive parts of a neck… it only ever ended one way.

But it was never Morgan who started it.

 Wes gave in slightly to his body’s demands- he could ignore Morgan’s closeness no longer- and gently stroked Morgan’s arm with a shaky hand.

“Morgan… what happened?”

The microwave dinged to a stop and he furiously reset it.

Morgan was shaking too and he nuzzled warily deeper into Wes’s back. Wes glanced down at his arms and they were tight.

He didn’t think he wanted to let Morgan tell him in his own time. Maybe he would if Morgan had been more straight with him. No pun intended.

“Tell me.”

Morgan moved his chin so it rested on his shoulder.

 _“Morgan_ ,” he snapped. The frustration was partly his own- he didn’t think his brain could grapple with the fact that they could touch like this for this long without him caving into how much he wanted him.

“He’s… gone.”

_Congratulations, Captain Obvious._

‘I can see that.”

“Really gone.”

“Yes, still seeing it.”

“He doesn’t want to be with me anymore.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Morgan, please stop touching me.”

Morgan let him go with a shove and stalked out of the kitchen again. Wes bent over the counter, breathing heavily. He hadn’t intended for the last bit to come out, but he had meant it.

“He doesn’t love me.” Morgan was snarling to himself in the living room. “ _Bastard._ Just like that _,_ and it’s all my fucking _fault_! _IDIOT!_ ” Wes heard the lethal _poof_ of a couch cushion as it connected with plaster.

“Are you _blind_?” Wes followed him out to the sitting room. “He is _bat-shit_ crazy about you.”

“It’s not _him,_ ” Morgan had another couch cushion held above his head ready to throw and he lowered it slowly. “It me… He thinks… He thinks I don’t love him anymore. And he won’t believe me no matter how often I say it.”

“Know that I am rolling  my eyes because that too is glaringly obvious.” Wes threw his hands up in the air in the most exaggerated gesture of frustration he could come up with. _I know you love him, because I see something when you talk about being with him in your eyes that isn’t there when you talk about being with me._

“He thinks that I love you.” Wes’s neck snapped around at these words so fast he wouldn’t have been surprised if Morgan had heard it click across the room, but Morgan didn’t look at him as he hugged the cushion to his chest.

 “Oh.” Wes took a step back. Love? But Morgan didn’t even… “You don’t though. Do you?” he demanded.

Okay. Well, with that he could see where Max was coming from. Showing up at your boyfriend’s doorstep to find that he had somehow adopted a practically live-in fuck-buddy must have got Max’s brain ticking.

_Poor Max._

“He thinks that… you’re easier to love. Than he is.”

“Is he?”

Morgan swallowed and rocked slightly on his feet.

“I wish he was.” He buried his head into the fabric. “I really wish sometimes that I didn’t love him.”

Love. Wow. _That_ was a big word.

What were these feelings? He felt something for Morgan, he really did, but he never at any stage thought of it as love. He cared about him, so much, but he had never been able to rubber stamp it with the “L” word like he had when Max had sobbed it out in front of him, when he saw how deep that Morgan’s carelessness had cut him. Or like right now when it had just fallen so casually out of Morgan’s mouth.

“Sit down,” he interrupted his own thoughts as Morgan tipped dangerously forward.

“Sit,” he demanded again, taking him by the elbow. He then realized that all the couch cushions lay at awkward angles in the furthest corners of the room.

“Sit over here,” he decided, pulling Morgan still hugging one of the large red cushions behind him as he led him to his room and sat him at the end of the bed.

The room was pristine. Wes had never seen it this tidy, the sheets were stretched out on Morgan’s bed like they’d been poured there and he took great pleasure in destroying the unwrinkled look of the covers when he sat on them .

 “He’s afraid,” Morgan whispered.

“He’ll come back,” Wes said reassuringly.

“No.” Wes couldn’t decide if it was a gasp or a whisper but he felt the need to reach out and hold him like nothing he had before. “No- because- of what he said. That it’s too hard. We’re too far away from each other. Even though we feel like we do, we don’t make any sense. We tried and we don’t work. That’s… it.”

Wes wanted to hold him so badly- tight into his chest and so he could stroke his hair back into place, so Morgan could squeeze him instead of that cushion…

But that wouldn’t happen. That had been the price Wes had to pay- Morgan closed off the second Wes touched him.

Morgan ran his free fingers over his bottom lip as if trying to re-create a part of Max’s touch. “He kissed me in front of all those people like he didn’t care if they noticed.”

“They didn’t,” Wes muttered.

Morgan pulled his knees onto the bed and curled up smaller.

 “You never answered my question,” Wes said. “From before.” He took Morgan’s silence as affirmation to keep going. “The one about… whether or not… you loved me.”

Feelings. Wes had decided early on that whatever this was that they had been doing couldn’t be about feelings. Unless Morgan had guessed, and he most definitely could not have missed it, Wes never told him how he felt about him, or for how long he’d wanted him. If it wasn’t for Morgan’s gradual physical responses- warming up to kissing him back, guiding him in that first time they’d fucked- Wes wouldn’t have even thought he’d invested emotion at all.

Morgan’s head turned towards him.

“Because I really care about you,” Wes blurted out, “and If you tell me,” he swallowed, “right now, that nothing is there, and Max is the end of the line, that’s fine but if… if you feel… otherwise… ”

_I want to be with you._

Feelings. Feelings were bad.

“I don’t know.” Morgan said eventually.

“You… don’t know?” Wes repeated dumbly. It wasn’t the confident “no” that he had been expecting. Something rose up in his chest and he suddenly felt very afraid that it was hope.

He couldn’t meet Morgan’s eyes in case he saw it.

 “I don’t love you, Morgan.” Wes wanted to.

“I didn’t think that you could,” Morgan admitted. “Not after what I’ve been like to you.”

Wes shook his head. “I still feel things. But it’s okay. It couldn’t work. You don’t even come for me.”

Morgan set the cushion down on the bed behind him and moved closer. “I can’t believe you think that I don’t care about you. Of course I do. Everything that we did… it just reminded me of Max. Wes, it was so hard for me not to think of him. And then it was really hard to react to you.”

Wes had thought it was him. That he kissed with too much tongue. Or that he didn’t sit right inside Morgan. That he didn’t use enough lube. That he used too much of it. He would come and that would be the end- Morgan would get out of bed for a bit, go into the kitchen maybe, come back and then fall asleep like nothing had happened while Wes got his breath back. Wes had been caught in the awkward trap of wanting to fuck Morgan repeatedly but slowly growing to think that maybe after all this time that he was _bad_ at it. .

“You thought- no. Wes-“ Morgan reached out a hand and pressed under Wes’s chin, trying to tilt his face back towards him, but Wes shook his head free and kept his watering eyes trained in the other direction. The break in his nose began to throb. “It’s not you. Really. This one’s on me.” Wes sniffed and felt his cheeks redden. “I didn’t realize that it meant that much to you. _I’m_ sorry- I should have been more there. I missed Max too much. But some part of me must have wanted it if I let it go on.”

“Max loves you.” Wes croaked out the words, not even trying to hide the tremor in his voice. “Of course the sex was better.”

 “You don’t have to love someone to come. You of all people should know that.”

“Hey!”

_Fuck, how did this become about me?_

Morgan smiled and he smiled and briefly things were better.

“You kiss him differently, you know.”

“I don’t discriminate.”

Wes shook his head furiously. “You do. Because you want to touch him and you don’t want to touch me.”

“I don’t- _Wes_. Really?”

“Yeah really. Maybe if you kissed me like that I’d be in love with you.”

Morgan laughed.

“Seriously!”

Wes watched as he twisted his fingers, “I wonder what it would have been like if there had never been Max. Maybe I would have told you how I felt sooner.”

“Sooner?” He was aware of how close Morgan was getting as he tried to look him in the eye.

Oops.

He changed tack.

“I asked you all this earlier. Why did I get a different answer?” He shot back.

“I wanted Max and I to work.”

“And?”

“He doesn’t want me any more.”

“ _Morgan_!” Wes could finally face him. “There was nothing stopping you from getting on that train after him this evening.”

Morgan looked surprised.

“Fuck, romance really is dead, isn’t it?” Wes shook his head. He knew that had been his chance. If there had ever been a time to go for Morgan with a real chance of success, it was when he had been admitting that maybe there was something there after all.

But Max’s face as he looked at him in horror yesterday and as he’d looked at Morgan before he kissed him with the adoration of a five year old and it’s most precious possession just wouldn’t leave his head.

_Maybe that fluffy rabbit look has some credibility after all._

“New rule, okay?” He stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s Max or neither of us. Morgan, all I hear is how much you love him but he leaves you and _you let him_. He, Loves. You. Why are you even wasting your time with me? You were giving up rugby for him this afternoon, and look, I have a Heineken Cup to win next week- I need my head so stop fucking with it.”

He didn’t look back as he headed for the door.

Not until Morgan called out after him.

“Wes, please-“ words that he couldn’t ignore, so he stopped, and turned around “- don’t leave me.”

 _Fuck. No way can I leave that face_. He swallowed.

“Not tonight.” Morgan whispered, his voice taking on a desperate edge.

“Contrary to popular belief I have a home to go to.”

“But I need you.”

Wes swallowed.

“Please.”

“Good night, Morgan.”

He stayed rooted to the spot for several seconds too long, and that was all it took for Morgan to get out reach out to pull them together. He wrapped around Wes and buried his head into his neck.

“Don’t leave me. Not tonight.”

“You don’t want this Morgan.”

“I want you to stay with me.”

Curling up in a bed with Morgan in his arms was all Wes wanted to do. _He won’t thank me for it_.

“I told you,” Wes took a deep breath, “and you know, staying with you means something different to me that it does with you.”

Morgan suddenly weighed quite heavy against his body.

“We can both want the same thing tonight,” Morgan began carefully.

Words of protest were in Wes’s mouth when Morgan’s lips met the pulse point on his neck below his ear.

“Tonight I can belong to Wesley Fofana. If he wants me.” Morgan’s kiss reached Wes’s mouth.

Shock was primarily what prevented Wes from kissing back. Shock because this was the first time Morgan had come to him. Later because he never thought it would happen, he barely even dared to dream it.

Morgan’s arms were around his neck and his fingers were pressing into his scalp. His lips moved slowly- less of a kiss, more of a taste- pulling slightly on Wes’s as though he was exploring him for the first time.

Wes broke away and stepped back.

“Please don’t,” he said. “Don’t act like you want what I do.”

Fear danced over Morgan’s features and it made his eyes wide.

“I can’t lose you.” Wes waited for the _too_ at the end, the one that would indicate that he was only missed and needed when something else wasn’t there.

“You haven’t _lost_ me, Morgan,” he said impatiently. “I’m just going back to my own bed. Like last night, when I was kicked out of yours.” His resistance was short lived as Morgan eased back into his arms again.

He could be four hundredth on Morgan’s needed list but he would still use every excuse to touch him.

He held him for an age; Morgan tucked his head in over Wes’s ear, his breath soft- his arms tightening slightly when his body began to shake.

“Okay, fine,” Wes murmured, cursing his powers of resistance- which were none. “In to bed. C’mon…”

Morgan took off his shoes and socks and sidled in under his duvet, Wes followed close behind- wrapping his arms around Morgan’s front and resting his chin just at Morgan’s shoulder; automatically fitting one leg through Morgan’s thighs.

“Just until you sleep,” he murmured. Morgan’s top hand found the outstretched fingers of Wes’s bottom one and lightly linked with them. “Then I’ll go.” He raised his free arm to brush Morgan’s jaw. “Okay?”

“No,” Morgan huffed. That made Wes smile. This was almost-not quite- the Morgan of his dreams. The one that made him lie awake some nights and imagine that he had.

He continued his light strokes across Morgan’s chin while he hushed him, stroking his hair back from his face, not needing to look to know where to place his hands. He knew every detail of that face like it was tattooed on the back of his eyelids.

“You hold me together, Wes,” Morgan whispered. “When we’re like this it’s literally like you’re holding me together.” His hand squeezed. “You were a little bit right earlier.”

“How so?” Wes feigned the sleepiness in his tone. _You don’t care,_ he told himself. _You’re doing this because he asked you to_.

“I’m better when I’m with you.”

Tonight had been a feelings-admission overload on both their parts and Wes decided maybe it was better to disregard that comment.

“Don’t be so silly.”

The bump on the tip of Morgan’s spine pressed against Wes’s cheek. Wes thought about how it made Morgan giggle when he sucked it early in the morning. He suddenly wondered if it was something Max did to him.

“I really miss him,” Morgan’s whisper was hoarse, “it hurts.”

Not as much as the jealousy that punched Wes’s stomach.

“I know,” he mumbled instead. “He’ll come back. Shhhh. He knows next week is a big week for you. Maybe he wants to leave it until… after.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” He totally hadn’t just made that up. “Remember the semi-final?”

“You mean remember _after_ the semi-final?”

“No,” he chuckled.

 Pause.

“Yes.”

“You liked that didn’t you?”

“Stop it,” he pressed a kiss into the base of Morgan’s neck and then froze, remembering that he wasn’t meant to do that anymore. Should he apologise? Maybe pretend that he hadn’t meant it that way. “You know I liked it. I didn’t you know you did that well with your mouth full.”

“Ha,” Morgan muttered sarcastically.

Another long pause. A question pulsed against Wes’s brain and he decided that, all things considered, he’d better just ask it.

“Why did you do that to me if you didn’t even like me?”

“Don’t say it like that. You were so happy and so _drunk_ ,” he cackled, “and I could tell that it was going to happen sooner rather than later, and that maybe you wouldn’t be conscious by the time we got back to the hotel.”

“I would have wanted to share the moment with you, that’s all,” Wes muttered, embarrassed as always when anyone mentioned that he couldn’t hold his drink. “I thought you might want it too.”

“Yes, well, we weren’t exactly equipped for you to fuck me in a toilet cubicle. Also, you’re really… loud.”

“What?”

“You are!” He could hear the smile. “You go all growly when you… never mind.”

“So to shut me up you sucked me off in a toilet cubicle instead?”

“I guess… but you liked it.”

“I like you.” The words had slipped out in a comfortable moment and he regretted them. “Sorry. You… make me feel really safe.” Not much better. “That’s all.” Beat. “Sorry.”

Everything about Morgan made him feel safe. He wished he could smell Morgan’s neck but his nose didn’t permit that kind of thing right now. Normally it smelled like a wonderful mix of soap and washing detergent- Morgan’s smell that was lovely and relaxing and _home_.

He wondered if his plaster was uncomfortable against Morgan’s skin.

“You were smiling so much after,” Morgan was going on as if he hadn’t heard him. “I thought you were going to explode.”

Well, he sort of had exploded. He wondered if Morgan had swallowed. Probably not, he reasoned, no one wants that.

_Always with the important questions, Fofana._

He hoped that Morgan couldn’t feel how happy this memory made him against the back of his leg. He would have to deal with that later.

 _How was I so blind to the fact that he didn’t want me_?

“I was happy that you were happy,” Morgan murmured, as though he had been following Wes’s thoughts. “Don’t think otherwise.”

“He’ll call,” Wes said, suddenly snappy, “after the final.”

Morgan wiggled free of Wes’s grip and turned around to face him.

“If he doesn’t,” he swallowed, “will you have me?”

“What?”

“If he still doesn’t want me, I think… I think I could be happy making you happy instead.”

Wes wanted to cry all over again as he shook his head. “Don’t reason with me. I know you think it’s better than us being miserable separately but…” _I don’t want you unless you’re going to love me and you won’t,_ “that won’t change how you feel about him-“

Morgan suddenly pulled their mouths together again, silencing Wes. His arms wrapped around Wes’s neck when he pulled back- Wes lost all control of his words- and kissed him again, it deepened as Wes opened his mouth to protest- this was different. This was lustful. Hungry.

He was lost. He forgot everything he’d said as he rolled Morgan onto his back- or Morgan pulled him on to his chest; he wasn’t sure, maybe it was both. The want came back and took over, his arm wrapped around Morgan’s back and their bodies clanged together; his other reached behind Morgan’s head, and pushed it even closer.

Morgan raised his hips to wrap his thighs around him and Wes felt it even through the fabric.

“You want me,” he gasped against Morgan’s mouth, moving to his neck and nuzzling it as he groaned. He lifted his torso so his hardness moved against Morgan’s.

“ _Ah,_ ” Morgan gasped. Wes liked the sound of his surprise so he pressed kisses into Morgan’s neck as he shifted closer, hoping he’d say it again.

He kissed slowly, deliberately, like Morgan was something tender, porcelain, soft- he had to be gentle, so gentle because Morgan was precious.

“Yes,” Morgan breathed as Wes’s lips moved, “exactly like that. Hmmmm, wow-” he  turned his head to catch at Wes’s lip and tugged at his bottom one with his teeth. It sent shockwaves up Wes’s spine, “- you can kiss when you want to.”

Wes’s query was lost as Morgan’s tongue pushed into his mouth and softly caressed the sides of it. Fingers pulled at the front of his t-shirt and his hands slid under Morgan’s top to press against his warm skin. Morgan’s mouth explored his neck now, examining the tender parts where the blood ran close to the surface, Wes felt the press of Morgan’s tongue as his pulse hammered against it. Teeth continued to pull at his skin- at his lips, at his neck- something Morgan hadn’t done before, and it hurt, but in a way that was thrilling.

 _He’s hungry_.

Morgan’s hands moved of their own accord- down around Wes’s stomach and his hips, more crucially under his trousers and along his hardness as it rested against his leg.

Wes’s back arched at that touch- he felt Morgan’s hands wrap around him and pull- and he heard the long moan escape his lips.

 “Lose the t-shirt,” Morgan muttered, and with one hand helped Wes’s shaking ones lift it over his head.

Wes pulled at the loose elastic of his trousers and his boxers and as he sprung free Morgan grasped him fully- stroking, pulling- Wes thought he saw something like hunger in Morgan’s eyes as he began to dissolve above him.

He reached down and pulled Morgan’s hand away, bringing it back up to rest against the pillow behind him.

“Shhhh,” he kissed Morgan’s protest into silence.

He wanted to tell him, but he’d find out soon enough. There was something that, despite everything they’d done, he’d never had the courage to try.

He sank under the duvet and cursed to himself as he struggled to free Morgan up in the dark.

Morgan’s reaction was the one he’d hoped for as he carefully wrapped his tongue around the top of him. Morgan’s hands clenched around the sheets in fists and he heard the sound of his pleasant surprise- no protest, no hands pulling his head away, like he’d feared. He’d lain awake for months with this rolling around in his head, and an almost-plan of how to proceed emerged as he took more and more of Morgan in his mouth; sucking softly at first. He wanted Morgan to feel his tongue, feel him tasting him.

Morgan pulled the duvet off them and Wes suddenly felt exposed in the light with his mouth around him, so he let go. Even after he did he could still slightly feel how heavy Morgan had been in his mouth.

Morgan pulled his head back up to him, his wonderfully pale cheeks were flushed and his breathing was raspy as though it was pre-season all over again.

“Fuck. Me.” He murmured between kisses as he placed them around the edges of Wes’s cast.

“But I wasn’t-“

“Please. _Please_.”

Wes hesitated. With the warm suddenly spreading through his belly there wasn’t must else he could concentrate on.

He realized how deeply Morgan was breathing. But he’d just… it had only been for… could he really have been that close?

He pressed his lips softly into Morgan’s temple. “I know where everything is,” he said quietly. “If you’re sure.”

Even if Morgan hadn’t been sure Wes wasn’t entirely certain that he would have been able to hold back.

Morgan’s hands gripped his hair.

“Say it to me, Morgan.”

Morgan tried to kiss him but Wes pulled back, although he felt for Morgan’s cock to make sure it was still hard.

“Say it.”

“Fuck me,” Morgan took a deep breath. “Fuck me, Fofana. Do it now.”


	10. Ten

Wes snored.

That was always one thing about sharing a room with him that Morgan had never enjoyed. Thankfully, that responsibility was usually left to someone else when they played away.

Which had been until Morgan had let him in to his bed. Now it was getting harder and harder to kick him out.

Morgan could, of course, pretend that this was the reason he was lying awake while it was getting light outside. Early enough to still be slightly convinced that the change of colour in the sky was less an indication of the hour and more his imagination acting up after a restless night.

His stomach was a mess. Distressed and sick; and tossing and turning did nothing to help. He had thought… if he’d been in to it… like Wes wanted him to be in to it… if he’d let go of his feelings for a while…

Not that it hadn’t been good. It had been good. Better, in fact, that it normally was.

He swallowed, tore his gaze away from the ceiling and curled up on his side, against the curve of Wes’s hip.

 _Sleep_ , he commanded. _Sleep, it’s not that fucking hard_.

He lay motionless for several seconds before sighing and untangling himself from the covers. Back to the usual routine- day naps on the couch while Wes watched TV and waiting until he left before crawling back under his duvet; finally alone.

A life spent sleeping less with Wes in it was still preferential to a life with no Wes in it at all. At least if Wes was there he could get a few hours. He didn’t like admitting to himself how much he’d liked having him around. Wes was so _fun_. Nothing was serious while he lay sprawled- because that would be the only way to describe how Wes treated every object on which he could possibly lie, or sit- across Morgan’s sofa, or his counter top, or his bed; to the point where he would turn into such a slob that even Morgan couldn’t take it and he’d threaten to slap that effortless grin from Wes’s face.

And yet…

He reached for his phone, half buried down the side of the couch, and turned it over and over with his fingers.

He knew better than to expect Max to have called.

That was the thing about Max. They had a relationship that was so intensely physical that when they were apart Morgan was always struck by how little he knew him at all. How little time they had actually spent together. How little of that time wasn’t sex.

That if he called right now, even if Max did pick up, he didn’t even know what he could say.

The exact hour of the morning on his phone clock that lit up his face when he unlocked it made his heart drop. There was now no denying the dawn outside. He wandered over to the door that led onto his balcony and opened it. Cold wind hit his face and suddenly he felt very, very awake.

Groaning, he felt around his wash basket for some pants and pulled Wes’s hoodie from where it hung on the door.

_It’s my one anyway. He needs to stop taking my stuff._

He settled down on a chair outside and focused his eyes on the horizon, all the while digging his nails into the stubborn plastic of his phone.

His balcony was a joke. More of an extra-large window sill. It only fit two chairs, and it was only ever warm enough to sit out there for a few months of the year. And definitely not this early in the morning, he could feel the ice forming on his toes.

 _Potential hypothermia isn’t even enough of a distraction_ , he thought bitterly. _Despite all that stuff… about how well I know Max… about… about how much time we actually spend together… I slept really well when he was there with me_.

Holding him. Kissing him. Pressing every possible inch of his body against Max’s. With Wes it just wasn’t like that. With Wes it just wasn’t _need_.

 _I_ know _Max feels the same._

Maybe it was fear of that feeling that kept driving them to do the opposite of what they intended. Morgan could control how he felt about Wes, to an extent. Maybe it was that Max could control how he felt about Morgan better from a distance.

Maybe, despite how they felt about each other, if it kept driving Max away and Morgan into someone else’s arms, they were both better off apart.

This sounded good, but it felt bad. _Bad_.

Morgan sniffed. The sky was orange now, the sun still hidden behind the rise of other buildings that separated him and the horizon.

He checked his messages again, but his last one was still Jubon reminding him that his car tax was up. Without even properly registering what he was doing he’d scrolled to Max on his contact list; staring at the very familiar numbers. It helped to know that if he only pressed on that illuminated green phone, several seconds later, Max would be right there.

Neither of them had every called each other.

And since space was what Max had specifically asked for yesterday, Morgan wasn’t about to start.

 _He’s had nothing but space for two months_ , Morgan thought bitterly, aggressively tracing the _Call_ button with the tip of his finger. _Just press it already, Morgan. He’ll pick up._

He remembered fondly how Max had been stupidly giggly when they’d agreed to swap the numbers in the first place. He smiled, and stretched his fingers out, almost feeling Max’s hair curl around them.

The resulting sudden burst of sadness hit his chest painfully.

Maybe he was kidding himself if he thought that heartbreak also lead Max to insomnia.

Maybe he was kidding himself if he thought that Max was currently suffering from heart break at all.

Text. That’s what he’d do. Text him. Sufficiently relaxed. Non-committal.

_Easily deleted._

“ _Good_ …” he mumbled, his fingers trembling slightly at the click of each button, “… _m-orn-ing_.”

 _Max? Love? Beautiful_?

Full stop.

He paused, chewing his lip.

Texting was traumatic.

“ _Thinking… of… you_ …” No. No way. This wasn’t a greeting card. This was just a casual, nonchalant, five-thirty in the morning, hey-how-you-doin’ text message. Right?

Hastily he erased it.

“ _Miss you_.”

He was never any good at this whole texting thing. Texts were for conveying facts and not _chatting_. He still had a lot of trouble deciding if a text had been sent in earnest or in sarcasm.

“ _Really…_ no,” he grumbled angrily while backspacing. “ _No pancakes this morning_.”

On reflection, five thirty was too early to decide whether or not to have pancakes for breakfast. He changed it again to “ _Miss your pancakes_ ”.

Careful crafting. That’s what this was all about.

“ _Good morning,”_ he mumbled to himself, turning the words over in his mouth, trying to imagine Max reading them _, “Miss your pancakes._ ”

He paused and rubbed his eyes.

“ _Bed was_ …”

That horrible feeling returned in his stomach. He couldn’t write about his bed being cold without Max in it. Because it hadn’t been.  Wes had been in it instead.

Why did he keep forgetting the very real problem that Wes was now in it instead?

“ _Fuuuuuuuuuuck_ ,” he groaned, letting his hand go limp and burying his head in his knees.

 _Max can’t know that it happened again_.

He would find out.

 _He’ll find out when I tell him._ Morgan planned to only ever tell him if Max decided that this wasn’t what he wanted after all.

And if Max did want it after all?

 _I can’t do that to Wes_.

Maybe it was about time that he focused on the certainties. Like, the fact that Wesley liked him. And never seemed to question it.

He stared at the text for several more long seconds before he sent it the way it was.

Maybe Max would write back and tell Morgan he loved him. He had said it yesterday enough times after all. And he had kissed him goodbye.

The clouds were red in the dawn.

“Morgan?”

Morgan jumped in his chair and it squeaked loudly on the ceramic tiles.

“Wes?” he croaked. “What… why are you up? Why are you dressed? Go back to bed.”

“I made you some tea.”

“Tea?” Morgan asked, confused. The cup was scalding in his hands and he suddenly realised how cold he actually was. He shivered bodily and it splashed over the rims of the mug and down his knuckles.

“Yeah. As you like it. Strong. Hot. Sugary.” Wes grinned when he sat down. “A bit like you.”

He leaned across the short space between them and Morgan closed his eyes when he felt him against his mouth.

“Tea?” Morgan blurted out, again, breaking their kiss. “When did you get so domesticated?”

Wes sat- sprawled- back and chuckled. “It’s just tea.”

“And you do cheesy lines now too?”

“Shut up.”

Morgan was waiting for Wes’s cheeks to flush with the embarrassment but he just took a large gulp from his mug.

Max spent most of his time in a state of humiliation. It meant his cheeks were always so wonderfully coloured.

Morgan’s heart began to race at this thought and he gulped his tea down quickly.

“How’s… it?” he asked, gesturing at Wes’s nose.

“Hurts like a bitch,” Wes mumbled. “Didn’t have my painkillers.”

“You were snoring worse than you normally do; I guess I should really forgive you for it.”

“Did you sleep at all?” Wes asked, after a few moments.

“Yeah,” Morgan lied.

“I’ve told you to kick me when I snore. It’s nothing personal. Stanley has me ruined with bruises.” Morgan raised an eyebrow and Wes threw back his head when he laughed. “Shut up.”

Morgan smirked. “I didn’t say anything,” he insisted innocently.

“Feel free,” Wes put his cup down and inched his chair forward, reaching up to cup Morgan’s face with one hand, “to _ruin_ me any time you want.”

Morgan hesitated this time and Wes stopped.

“What happened?” He placed his hand on Morgan’s, the one that still clutched his phone tightly in between his fingers, and brought it on to his lap. “Did he call?”

He said it nonchalantly, as if he had only asked about the weather.

Morgan bit his lip and looked down at their hands. Wes was still wearing his rings. Morgan hadn’t realised how cold his fingers were until he felt the warmth of Wesley’s.

“Do you want me to go?”

“No!” Morgan blurted out hurriedly. “No he… didn’t. I don’t,” his voice cracked, “I don’t want you to go.”

Wes smiled and stroked at Morgan’s hair. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t have gone anyway. You’re worrying me… look-“ he ran his fingers over Morgan’s neck and Morgan knew he was tracing the goosebumps on it. “You’re freezing.”

“I have noticed.”

Wes sighed. “Don’t do this to yourself. Come inside.”

He stood up and brought Morgan after him by the hand- his hand around Morgan’s, Morgan’s around his phone.

“Better?” He asked, sliding the door closed again and rubbing his fingers gently up and down Morgan’s arm. “Why are you wearing my top?”

“S’mine,” Morgan grumbled. He placed his mug and his phone down on the kitchen counter. He still couldn’t really feel his toes. “Now it smells like you.” And because worry didn’t suit Wes, he added: “now it actually just smells.”

“Oh, do I?” Wes broke into a smile. “Smell, eh?” He crossed his arms behind his head and sauntered towards Morgan, armpits first.

“What are you- seriously- _agh, stop_! I don’t want your- _not in my face_!”

Morgan laughed when Wes tackled him by the waist, yanking at his hair.

“ _Don’t lift_ \- woah!”

“Why do you get to eat twice as much as me and still weigh _nothing_?” Wes whined, lifting Morgan’s feel several inches off the ground.

“Because you used to be fat- _ow_.” It hadn’t hurt when Wes had dumped him on the floor again but he scowled anyway, biting his lip to stop himself laughing. He poked Wes hard in the ribs. “Don’t do that again!”

“Or what?” Wes sniggered, poking him back.

“ _Ow_!” Morgan shoved him and Wes took a step back.

“Did you just _shove_ me?” he asked, stunned.

“ _Yeah_.” Morgan said it with a snarl. Then he collapsed into helpless giggles.

“It’s rude to _shove_ , Parra,” Wes cackled, pushing at Morgan’s shoulders enough so he had to push back to stop himself falling backwards. Wes was much stronger than him though, so even though he twisted at his arms to free them there was only one option.

“ _Ow! Fuck!_ My-“ Wes doubled over, clutching at his shin. “ _PARRA_!”

Morgan didn’t know where the squeal of glee came from as he skittered backwards across the room, but it was never a noise he’d made before.

Wes moaned and fell back to sit on the floor. “You’re so dead,” he croaked.

“Ugh, what is this?” Morgan wiped his hand on his leg. “What _is_ that stuff that you put it your hair, Wes? It’s like... car wax...”

“Well,” laughed Wes, finally getting to his feet. “At least I have hair-“

“-Don’t go there!“ Morgan took several steps back.

“I will go there,” Wes’s eyes sparkled as he advanced.

Trapped, Morgan ducked through the door and in to the bedroom, aware out of the corner of his eye of Wes springing in to action like lightning. He dodged, and weaved, but he knew the game was up when he felt Wes’s long arm across his stomach.

He heard the high-pitched squeal again.

 _That can’t possibly be me making that noise_ , he decided.

“You scream like a girl,” Wes murmured against his ear. Morgan wriggled and turned and there was some more pushing and pulling and falling and shrieking but Wes was already kissing him in the time it took Morgan’s leg to tangle sufficiently in his sheet.

He couldn’t remember Wes ever kissing him like this. Last night, maybe, nearly. He could almost taste the triumphant smile on Wes’s face as his lips moved. And his hands; Wes’s hands always held him with such confidence, but especially now. His fingers were pressed into Morgan’s spine and they pulled him so close to Wes’s torso that Morgan faintly felt the slight drum of his heart every time his chest expanded.

Morgan reached and caught the back of Wes’s neck, bringing him closer to his mouth. Wes made a happy groaning sound and moved an arm down, back around Morgan’s back, his hip, down-

Morgan yelped and jerked his leg free from the impossibly complicated knot of sheets, straight up into Wes’s stomach. And then they were apart.

Morgan quickly looked away and sat up, hugging his knees.

He was breathing so heavy, what was going on? With Wes there had never been any... fire. No hot flames licking the inside of his chest cavity. Not like there were with Max.

Was he imagining that something about this was now inexplicably and undeniably _good_? Did he just want to think like that, for Wes’s sake? For his own?

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. He hadn’t meant it about kneeing him. That part of him that Wes had just touched still tingled slightly.

“My bad,” Wes mumbled; his voice muffled as he resignedly buried his face into the mattress.

There was a sudden silence.

Morgan heard the springs creak as Wes inched himself across the bed to sit beside him.

“S’not you.” Morgan felt like he should stop him, but all he could do was hug his knees tighter to his chest and lean against Wes when his long fingers stroked gently at his hair.

 “Hey,” Wes mumbled, tracing the edge of Morgan’s bottom lip with his finger. “I know that you miss him.” He swallowed and continued: “but that... that’s what I want. And last night. That’s what I want us to be like.”

Morgan laid is head on Wes’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

“Okay,” he whispered.

“No, Morgan,” Wes groaned, and put his arms around him. “It’s not okay.” He placed a long kiss against Morgan’s temple, and another, and another. He made to say something else but seemed to stop himself just in time.

Morgan considered following him up on it but instead gently ran his fingers along the edges of Wes’s t-shirt as it cut the top of his arm.

“It’s okay,” he said firmly. “Because I asked you to stay. I asked you...” he hesitated, “I asked you for last night. Didn’t I?”

Wes shivered. “You’re allowed to change your mind, you know.” He sat back, letting him go.

“Wes...” Morgan’s hand still rested on his arm. When Wes turned Morgan kissed him firmly before he had the chance to protest.

Wes’s resolve broke and a ridiculously lop-sided smile poured from his face instead, distorted even more by the cast that still covered most of it.

“Go back to bed,” he whispered, but not before his mouth had tested Morgan’s intentions. “I’ll make you some breakfast before I go.”

“Domesticated,” Morgan muttered, stroking his thumb along Wes’s cheek. “Wait… go?”

“Sssshhhhhh,” Wes paused, and then kissed him again. Morgan let his tongue run along his teeth.  “I have to go see Doc. Nose, remember? Relax. I’ll come straight back.”

“It’s early.”

“It’s seven. Apparently a perfectly reasonable time in the morning.” He grinned when Morgan’s fingers nestled against his hip. “But then we have today. All day.”

Wes’s eyes were shining and something else added to the guilt in Morgan’s gut.

 _We_. They were a “we”, and as nice as kissing Wes was, hearing him say that made Morgan’s heart beat a little bit faster but in decidedly not a good way.

_This is so easy. Too easy? Or just easier than with Max?_

He heard Wes sigh and he knew it was due to his hesitation.

“There we go,” Wes muttered, getting up. “Try and get some sleep, Morgan.”

“Are you coming back?”

Wes paused in the door way.

“Do you want me to?”

“I don’t want you to _go_ ,” Morgan said dully.

Wes was smiling when he turned around. “I have to be there in twenty minutes. Don’t tempt me.”

Morgan crawled under his duvet and cocooned it around himself.

“Sleep with me,” he mumbled.

“Oh really?” Wes was already climbing back on to the mattress.

“ _Wes_ -“

“I know what you really meant,” he laughed. He lay down on top of the duvet cover and curled around Morgan.

“You’d think you were deprived.”

Wes draped his arm over the Morgan-shaped lump on the bed and Morgan nuzzled in against his neck.

“Come back... then we can... you can...” he began.

“Shhhhh,” Wes smiled against his forehead.

“’Sleepy already see?” He muttered, and when he drifted he dreamt about pancakes.

***

Morgan was asleep. Really asleep, not that fake sleep he sometimes did just to put Wes at ease.

Wes knew he’d spent far too long stroking Morgan’s hair for there still to be a minute possibility of him being on time for his appointment, but he couldn’t stop himself somehow. He didn’t know how he was going to possibly sit through it anyway without a twitterpated grin on his face.

Morgan’s hair was soft under his fingers, and Wes smiled when Morgan’s brow creased. He closed his eyes and felt his mouth stretch further when he thought about the night before.

 _I can belong to Wesley Fofana, if he wants me_.

It threw his stomach into knots. Best sex he’d ever had?

 _Hmmmm... close_.

It was definitely time to go. He didn’t think the medical staff would take too kindly to him missing their rendez-vous, especially after he’d had the decency to break his nose a week before what was decidedly very definitely the biggest game of all their careers.

As quietly as he could manage, he slipped out in to the kitchen. He was starving, but there was no time for an actual breakfast. He reached for the box of toast in the cabinet.

He’d have some more food when he came back. Because Morgan wanted him to come back. Wes’s mouth burned with his last kisses. He shivered with the possibilities and their last free afternoon suddenly stretched endlessly ahead of him.

He should probably slow down. Remind himself that this only started in earnest yesterday. That Morgan had hurt and been hurt and the last thing he probably wanted was Wes falling this fast for him.

Fall. But Wesley Fofana didn’t _fall_? Not like this anyway.

 _But, let’s face it_ , he told himself, _you have been for a while now, haven’t you?_

Morgan’s phone vibrated loudly on the countertop beside him and he jumped, the toast slipping from his hands.

 _Well, at least it’s silent_. He cursed under his breath as he crouched down to sweep up the crumbs and then lob them into the bin. Admittedly he wasn’t the tidiest person in the world, but if he was going to be hanging around this place more often he might as well start off well.

As if to prove this point to himself he picked up his empty mug and dumped it in the sink. Then he reached for Morgan’s.

Morgan’s phone lit up again with three tiny letters that sent the cup sliding from Wes’s fingers and smashing all over the kitchen floor.

 _Max_.


	11. Eleven

“Kayse... _Kayse_!”

Wes could see the groan rising through Benjamin Kayser’s shoulders even from this end of the corridor.

“Is anything else going to stop me from getting to the gym today?” he asked impatiently, turning around. “First Doc, now you?”

Wes grinned. Kayser was a big old softie. Possibly even the softest softie in the entire club. Maybe it was a front-row thing, but all the _costauds_ in this club seemed to distinctly share the same trait of having a pretty mean bark but underneath that, absolutely no teeth at all.

“I have something I need to... ask you.” He smiled his widest smile. “Please?”

Kayser hoisted his bag further on to his shoulder and crossed his arms, cautiously. Wes had a feeling that he knew he’d been sought out. It had been pure luck, in fact, that they had both been summoned to their place of work when everyone else was probably spending their last full day of freedom as far away from it as physically possible. What remained to be seen was how much Wes’ suddenly obsessive idea would pay off.

“Um...” Wes scratched at the back of his neck nervously. “And I kind of need you to not read too much in to it. You know... if you can.”

Kayser raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Um...” Wes said again sheeplishly, looking quickly up and down the broad corridor on the inside of the Stade Marcel Michelin. “Is there anyone in there?” he asked, pointing at the gym door.

“No idea,” Kayser shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anyone else in the building.” Then his other eyebrow rose in comprehension. “This doesn’t have anything to do with avoiding every single one of Doc’s questions about your nose break, does it?”

Doc had taken off the cast, muttering about incompetent hospitals, and replaced it with three thin support strips across the bridge. It was still a bit swollen, but apparently, not that broken.

Wes averted his eyes and spotted a door to a room he knew would be empty. “This’ll do nicely-“

“-or that ridiculously long face you had on you when you arrived this morning?” Kayser asked again, following but also with clearly no intention to follow him past the threshold.

“- I’m sure it’s empty, but you know, you can never be certain,” Wes continued to chirp, ignoring the interrogation.

“Wesley Fofana,” Kayser barked. The desired effect was achieved and Wes stopped, his hand on the door. “There is _nobody here_. What’s with the slinking around? What exactly have you done?”

“I’d feel more comfortable… not in the open?” Wes suggested weakly.

Kayser stood imposingly in Wes’s path, making him wonder how he’d quite mastered the art of standing so his shoulders would appear twice as wide to the onlooker. He made a mental note to ask him later.

He took a deep breath and grimaced. “I think,” he swallowed. “A better question would be _who_.”

“Who what?”

“Who I… y’know. Did.”

Kayser looked apprehensive. “Who did you do?”

Wes felt his lips twist. He’d already said too much.

“Someone I probably shouldn’t have?” Tension made his voice lilt slightly at the end of his sentences.

He expected Kayser to leap back like he’d been stung; because, you know… _feelings._ Or make a joke about Wes being drunk. Or sigh and roll his eyes, or _something_. Instead his brows knitted and he leaned forward, tentative.

“I thought you were banging Parra?” He asked in a low voice.

That was not at all what Wes had been expecting. Not one little bit.

“Well,” Kayse continued, voice and posture returning to the same unforgiving stance. “Aren’t you?”

“You _know_?” he wheezed. He and Morgan hadn’t tried to keep it a secret or anything, the Stade had just always been for work and other activities somehow always ended up being reserved for Morgan’s house. And they hadn’t told anyone else because…

Well, no one had asked.

Kayse rolled his eyes. “ _I_ know? We _all_ know.”

“You _all_ know?”

Kayse looked like he was counting in his head. Then he shrugged. “Commiserations,” he said, “but yeah. Sort of.”

“Oh.” Surprise would barely let the syllable past his lips.

“You guys weren’t exactly being subtle. Anyone who decided that they needed to pee during the after party of that semi-final knew all about it, actually.” He winced.

There was a pause. An awkward one.

“Really?” Wes asked incredulously. “ _Everyone_?”

He waited for this news to bother him. But for some reason it didn’t.

The fingers on Kayser’s crossed arm tapped off their opposing bicep.

“You’re okay with that?”

Wes thought about it for a few more seconds. No more need to keep his hands off Morgan in public. He’d been at this club for years, and it wasn’t like they were the first or anything. And if everyone had already known and he hadn’t noticed a difference…

“Yeah,” he began slowly, and then he grinned. He started to warm with something that felt very much like pride. “I guess I am.” He pushed open the door into the physio room.

It was gloomy and cold and the light in the left corner of the room flickered once when Wes turned it on before it died completely.

Kayser looked preoccupied as he sat down on the massage bed. Wes stayed standing. He needed to pace when he was nervous. And he had a feeling that anxiety would play its part in this conversation.

“Is it okay now to ask why _you_ have the long face?” Wes said pointedly.

Kayser seemed to snap out of whatever it was that had temporarily taken over his brain.

“Nothing. That wasn’t really the reaction I was expecting,” he admitted truthfully. “If it’s not about Morgan, then what do you want to ask me?”

Wes smiled. “Oh, Benji,” he cajoled.

Kayser groaned.

“ _Benji_.”

“Not this again.”

“My dearest… _Uncle_ Benji.”

“What do you want?” he frowned and crossed his arms firmly again. “I’m not going to dish out advice.”

“I… just… wanted to know,” Wes took a deep breath. “If you… noticed anything. When you stayed with Morgan during the tests. You were in his room, weren’t you?”

Kayser looked confused for a second. And then his expression cleared.

“Ahhhh,” he sighed, sounding satisfied. “I know what this is about.” He stabbed his index finger in Wes’s direction. “This… this is about that fluffy Bordelais, isn’t it?”

Wes knew he looked floored, and Kayser laughed.

“Oh wow, you _really_ must think I don’t notice anything.”

“You _knew_ about Max?” Wes asked. His heart began to thump. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the answer to his question after all.

“ _Knew about him?_ There were three of us in the room for an uncomfortable length of time. I three wheeled for an entire eight-week period. Bro, you have no idea what that’s like.”  Wes decidedly didn’t like the fact that amusement weaved gently through those words. Third wheeling, in his experience, was not an ordeal that could be considered in any way enjoyable.

This… wasn’t quite a setback. In fact, it led nicely on to what his brain had spent the last several hours mulling over.

“What…” Wes cleared his throat, but his voice didn’t seem to want to up in volume. “What were they like together?”

Such a small part of him hoped that he had overestimated yesterday. That in reality, they didn’t quite function as a unit. And if Max came knocking again it would be followed by more ugly fireworks and then his swift departure.

“Like a pair of honeymooners,” Kayse said gruffly, but –still irritatingly- fondly.

 _Okay_.  Wes’s nails dug in to his arm, his head suddenly filled with images that made his stomach rock. Morgan’s face scrunched with despair and then Max’s full of all that stupid adoration and then that frustratingly tender kiss in the train station.

“Are you okay?” Kayse interrupted his thoughts.

“They were in love,” said Wes forlornly, leaning against the wall and tilting his head back so he felt the cool plaster at his crown. “Weren’t they?”

“Does it matter now?”

Wes chewed his lip miserably.

“It’s complicated,” he admitted. “I don’t think that I want to talk about it.”

Kayser looked unconcerned. “That’s why you dragged me in here though, isn’t it?” He said dully. “To talk about it.”

“No,” Wes shot back, “I just wanted to hear what… what you thought of them.”

Kayser surveyed him carefully.

“I swear,” Wes said, trying to smile. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

“You got the guy,” said Kayser slowly. “I’m telling you now, to forget about Fluffy.”

Wes considered this for a few long seconds, drawing his nails over the softness of his forearm and lowering his head to watch the pressure of his nails play with the surface colour of his skin.

“He punched me.” He said, the words slipping through his gritted teeth. “Max punched me when he found out that I was with Morgan. And he broke my nose.”

For the umpteenth time that day, Wes did not get the reaction from Benjamin Kayser that he was expecting. This time it was that he threw back his head and laughed.

“ _Really_? Wow.” Kayser whistled, impressed. Disappointingly impressed, Wes decided. “I didn’t think the kid had it in him.” He shook his head. “Maybe I underestimated him. Hmmm,” he smacked his lips, “we could have been great friends after all.”

“ _Benji_!” Wes exclaimed, helplessly.

“No, really. I can see why you didn’t want to tell Doc,” he sniggered. “Maxime Machenaud is a _kitten_.”

Wes glared at him.

“I’m guessing he wasn’t the one that ended it then?” Kayse scratched at his slight stubble in the corner of his jaw. “I can’t imagine Morgan finishing it though; somehow… maybe his patience finally ran out.” He stared at the ceiling thoughfully.

“Why,” Wes asked, stomach in knots, “would his patience run out?”

“Because Max was paranoid. But completely devoted to him at the same time. He liked to try and fight about it. I never got how Morgan never really lost his temper with him, especially since he loses his temper with just about everything else. Maybe Max really did mean that much to him. What?” He said, eyes sliding downwards and noting the deepening gloom on Wes’s face. “You asked.”

“You know, for someone who is supposed to be my independent third party,” Wes said coldly, “you seem to really be rooting for them.”

 “I’m not _rooting_ for them,” he said, dispassionately. “Nor, for the record, am I your independent third party. Calm down.”

Wes felt miserable. He started to pace.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, watching his laces as they moved, “how it got this complicated.” He massaged at the skin just behind his ear, “one minute they’re over, and the next they’re not, and then they are again and this all happened in a twelve hour period and _something_ ,” he wrung out his fists in frustration, “about them makes me want to force them together but at the same time… I thought that after the way Morgan said it yesterday… that they were finally done. I’m had even begun to think that Max left him so that he could be with me. Until his morning.”

He sighed. “ _Benji_ ,” his arms dropped to his sides as he came to a halt. “Please. I’ve done something.”

Kayser jumped when he realized that Wes was waiting for him to respond, caught off guard. “I don’t understand the question.”

“Max texted Morgan this morning.”

“So?”

“He sent him a pancake recipe.”

“Oh how awful,” Kayser said callously. “Oh, not a _pancake recipe_.”

Wes threw him a disparaging scowl. “Seriously. Who contacts their ex the day after they break up with them?”

Kayse nodded thoughfully.

“What did Morgan say when he read it?”

Wes shook his head. “He didn’t,” he said in a small voice. “I deleted it before he could see it.”

“A- _ha_! Which means _you_ had his phone this morning…” Kayse said, lifting his finger and pointing it accusingly in Wes’s direction, “which means you were with him, at a ridiculous hour this morning. Wesley Fofana, the guy who’s brain doesn’t function until at least eleven-thirty. So, excuse me for jumping to conclusions, but who fucked the guy last night and who didn’t? So who gives a fuck about pancakes?”

 “Benji…” Wes whimpered. “You saw them together. You _know.”_

Kayser looked obstinate.

“Please, _Benji_.”

“Okay, I _know_ ,” he dismissed him with a wide gesture of his hand. “Fuck, I am going to have to give you advice, aren’t I?”

“I’m… I…” Wes started to pace again, clawing now at his hair. “What if they’re the real thing? What if I fucked it up for them?”

“Maybe you just don’t want to look like a home-wrecker?” Kayser’s lips curved with amusement, but it died at the sight of Wes’s best attempts at a look of death.

“Look, whatever was going on between them, it was pretty intense,” he admitted. “Wes… at the pain of sounding old… look, sometimes it’s not a good idea to be in that situation. Maybe death by fire _isn’t_ what Morgan wants. Did you ever think like that?”

Wes continued to pace, turning on his heel so fast that his trainers squealed painfully on the linoleum.

Kayse sighed and got to his feet, stopping Wes when he placed two large hands on each of his shoulders.

“Listen to me Wes, because I’m only going to say it one more time.”

Wes raised his eyes, feeling pathetic. Despite his best attempts, Kayser’s eyes still showed a degree of concern that Wes didn’t want to merit.

“ _You got the guy_.” Kayser said earnestly, giving his shoulder a small shake. “ _Forget about Fluffy_.”

“What if Fluffy doesn’t want to be forgotten?” Wes murmured.

“You can’t make Morgan’s decisions for him, Wes. If he is with you, it’s because he’s decided that he’s with you, and maybe, possibly, it’s because it’s what he wants.”

Wes’s heart was beating very fast. And yet…

“It’s more complicated than that,” Wes said, exasperated.

Kayser looked at him hopelessly for several seconds. “Then,” he said slowly, “how about… you guys save that fight for the week _after_ we play in a Heineken Cup final.” He patted Wes’s shoulder. “Okay?”

He looked pleased with himself.

“Remind me never to ask you for advice again,” Wes muttered.


	12. Twelve

“Morgan?” Wes called. He wrestled his key from the front door and the sound echoed through the apartment as it clunked on the hall table. “Are you up?” He unzipped Morgan’s jacket- Morgan having claimed back his hoodie- and hung it up behind the door. “Whatever you do, don’t go in the kitchen alright?”

He found Morgan standing outside the bedroom door with his duvet caped over his shoulders, looking dishevelled. Half of his hair stood straight up and the same half of his face looked out of sync with the other- reddened and marked with the force that he’d pressed it against his pillow- leading Wes to believe that he’d slept quite well, thank you very much.

“Why can’t I go in to the kitchen?” he croaked.

Wes placed the brown papered patisserie bag down on the counter, beside Morgan’s now-silent phone that he tried very hard not to look at.

“I broke a mug,” he admitted. “And I’m not sure I did a thorough enough clean up job for you to walk on the floor in your bare feet yet. I’m sorry, I’ll get you a new one. ”

“No need,” Morgan sighed. “Most of the ones in my collection were free from some fundraiser or another.” He gripped onto the inside of his duvet and raised it up to scratch the fabric against his cheek.

“I got you some breakfast,” Wes said, his voice going suddenly soft.  He opened up the bag to examine the contents. “Since we’re still on holiday I decided to go all out… we have… butter… everything has lots of butter… and lots of things have sugar on them... most of it has been deep-fried… Hmmm…”

He looked up to see Morgan staring at him from across the kitchen, still looking rather like he’d just been hit over the head with a frying pan.

“How am I meant to get to breakfast,” he said hoarsely, “if I can’t walk across the kitchen floor?”

Wes raised an eyebrow. “Put some shoes on?”

Morgan moaned angrily and stretched. “It’s too early.”

“Too early to put shoes on?” Wes grinned. There was something undeniably cherub-like about Morgan when he was half asleep and in a mood.

“Definitely,” Morgan mumbled, opening one eye. “How’s Doc? The look has improved.”

“It’s a bit easier to manoeuvre alright,” Wes agreed. Something definitely crunched under his feet when he walked across the kitchen to take Morgan’s face in his hands.

“Definitely easy to manoeuvre,” Morgan muttered, blinking as though dazed after Wes’s kiss hello. It was possible that such a greeting was a little unanticipated on Morgan’s behalf, mostly because Wes had never kissed him hello before; but Wes... had just felt like it. He noted that Morgan distinctly tasted of toothpaste.

He pressed his forehead against Morgan’s and trailed a careful finger down his cheek, just where the bone dipped and he could feel the heat when Morgan flushed.

Morgan wrapped two duvet-balled arms around his back and he felt himself being nudged ever-so-slightly closer.

“Good morning,” he breathed. “Again.”

Morgan grinned, a distinct chuckle playing the depths of his throat.

“Nap was a good idea,” he conceded. Wes felt a free hand behind his back run under his top and against the distinctly sticky skin at his spine. “Although I think you need a shower.” He stopped for a second.

“What?” Wes grinned. He let his arms drape over Morgan’s shoulders and cross lazily behind his head.

“Did anyone ever tell you,” Morgan began, “that you look like a god?”

A peal of laughter escaped Wes’s mouth and he pressed his forehead to Morgan’s with a little more force. A few seconds ago it had been him making the celestial analogies.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry.

“I can definitely,” he let his hand reach back so it touched Morgan’s hair, “get used to being around you more often.”

“And I you,” Morgan mumbled. “If you keep bringing me breakfast. Which by the way, you technically haven’t _brought_ me yet.”

Wes leaned back and narrowed his eyes apprehensively, not quite sure if Morgan had meant it.

Morgan unwrapped his arms from around Wes and took a step back into his room, folding them instead around himself.

“Back to bed?”

“Mmmmh,” Morgan grunted and Wes watched him as he collapsed in a heap sideways across his bed. Wes kicked off his shoes and followed, lying back against the mattress and feeling the bones in his spine creaking like rusty bicycle gears as he stretched out.

“Where’s my breakfast?” Morgan’s voice came from somewhere in the mass accumulation of blanket.

“Geddit yourself,” Wes mumbled, closing his eyes. He was about four hours sleep behind schedule.

“I’m sleeping.”

“’Sounds like it.”

Silence wasn’t normally something that Wes was big on, but this was nice. Nothing but the sound of their breathing.

 “Was there anyone else there apart from you and Doc?” Morgan mumbled.

“Just Kayse with his hamstring.”

Wes opened his eyes and turned his head just as the top half of Morgan gushed forth from the covers.

“You know...” he began delicately. “They all know about... us.”

“Us?” Something about Morgan’s tone made Wes think that he wasn’t a fan of that turn of phrase and it stung slightly. Maybe it was being a bit forward to assume that they were considered an item, and not just casual sex, but they had been at it for two months now.  “Who do you mean by _all_?”

“The guys. At the club. They’ve figured out... you know. That we have sex.” The last part made him grin sheepishly; but not without a certain amount of pride. “Sometimes.” He searched Morgan’s face for an emotional response, but it was blank.

“How do you know?”

“Benji told me this morning. I haven’t been mentioning it, by the way,” he added carefully.

Morgan’s eyes closed as he rested his head on his hands. “How did that one come up in the conversation?”

Wes shrugged and looked up at Morgan’s ceiling. It was easier than lying.

He heard Morgan’s long sigh and suddenly felt worried.

“Max really didn’t like it when other people found out,” he said, voice catching faintly in his throat. “Did he?”

It was the first time either of them had mentioned Max by name since last night, and the minute Wes did he wished he hadn’t. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Morgan flinch.

“He- was- just nervous,” Morgan said, and Wes knew him enough to tell when he was trying to downplay the sharpness in his voice. He was defending him. Cute. “A lot of things make Max nervous. He can’t help it. It... It’s just who he is. Although sometimes I couldn’t deny his reasoning.”

Wes shut his eyes, deciding that maybe it was better if he couldn’t see Morgan’s facial expression when he said that.

“Let’s face it though, us fucking is far more believable,” Morgan added after a while.

A smile forced itself onto Wesley’s lips. “Is it? How so?”

“Well, we’re seen together a lot, aren’t we? And I’d be crazy if I didn’t already fancy you a little bit. Pretty much everyone else does.”

Normally the second half of that phrase would have set Wes on the defensive- there was also a set of jokes to go with his philandering ways as much as with his alcoholic ones- but he’d barely even heard it.

“What’s that?” he curled on his side to face him. “Did I just hear that you were having naughty dreams about me before this even started, Parra?”

Morgan’s eyes crinkled. It was lovely.

“That might be going a little bit far. But look at you,” he added seriously. “You’re an absolute dreamboat.”

Wes reached out a finger to trace the curves of Morgan’s hand. “I’m glad to know,” he twisted his mouth to quell his giggles, “that you think I’m a catch. I will use that fact in my efforts to get you in to bed more easily in the future.”

As he said that he felt his eyes flicker to the bed stand behind Morgan’s head, where a box of condoms still sat open. Suddenly he felt clammy.

“I’ve never met anyone who thought you weren’t. It’s that Smooth Operator side of you. It’s irresistible,” Morgan continued jovially.

“I must buy you breakfast more often.” He wound a hand around the back of Morgan’s head and pulled him towards him until his mouth was a hair’s-width away. “But stop. Or else.”

Morgan laughed and Wes let him go. Morgan pulled the blanket back around himself, satisfied. The smirk stayed on his face even when his eyes closed.

“Morgan,” Wes whispered, even though he didn’t know why he was, seeing as there was no one else to hear, “do you mean that? Did you already like me, like _that_?”

“Maybe?” One eye opened lazily.

“But I tried to kiss you before.”

“Incorrect. When you were drunk you tried to kiss me before.” Wes waited for him to continue, but he knew what was coming, and for some reason because it was from Morgan, it made him feel ashamed. “Not only have you tried that with nearly all of us already, but the one time you actually succeeded you nearly suffocated me.” The memory looked like it pained him.

“Sorry.”

Wes felt the warmth of Morgan’s breath on his collar when he exhaled.

“Really,” he insisted. “I’m sorry.”

Morgan shrugged. “That time you did kiss me I was kind of with Max already,” he said flatly. “Well, I was about to be. It wouldn’t have mattered. Sorry,” he added quickly, when Wes felt his face fall. “I didn’t mean it like that. Hey,” he reached his hand out and laid it on one of Wes’s.

November. They had been together since November. Now that he thought about it, Morgan had been a bit gloomy around Christmas time. And the New Year’s Eve party. Actually, he couldn’t really remember the New Year’s Eve party.

 _It’s because you were sloshed, Fofana_.

“Yesterday,” he continued boldly, even though his brain warned him not to push it, “you said you would break if he ever left you.”

Morgan’s hand squeezed. Wes expected pain to crack his face or for something to show behind his eyes, but his face remained set.

“Let me,” he said, “worry about that. It is between me and him. Not you.”

That made Wes panic slightly.

“If it’s going to hurt,” Wes laid his other hand on top of Morgan’s, “then, I’d rather you didn’t hurt on your own.”

“He- _it_ \- is _my_ problem,” Morgan said firmly. “Not yours.”

“I’m saying it as your friend,” Wes added gently. “Because you’re going to love him first anyway.”

“Don’t,” Morgan said, painfully, “make me feel bad for caring about you while I still love him.”

 _I still love him_. There. He’d said it. Irrefutable evidence that if Max came back, he would win. He couldn’t help but wonder if they would be here, and at this point, if he’d known that Max’s message had existed.

His insides back-flipped uncomfortably.

Morgan was glaring at him.

“What?” asked Wes, taken aback.

“What part of what I just said did you hear?” Morgan smiled, mostly with his eyes.

“I...” And then he realised that it was a rhetorical question. “I can’t help it,” he finished weakly, smiling back.

Morgan freed his hand and reached back, grabbing a handful of quilt and throwing it over Wes. “Get under here,” he laughed.

It was dark and suffocatingly warm, but somehow his hands found Morgan and somehow Morgan found his mouth.

He kissed him with a force that seemed to suck the air from his lungs.

“I care,” Morgan was breathless and his voice was lit with laughter, as they wriggled and squirmed in an effort to free each other from the shackles of their clothing. “I promise. And you,” he moaned, “you are a _god_.”

The body that Wes held to his grew warm and pulsed and mirrored the flame of hope as it roared in his chest. 


	13. Thirteen

No defeat was the same of course. It always started the same way. Wes pressed his head in to his knees and tried to remember to breathe. There were no voices amongst the click-clack of studs on tiles as his team mates followed in to the changing room.

Trying to forget any tackles he missed, passes he had fumbled...

It would only be after that he’d really begin to feel it. The last week, for example, had been... paralytic. And here they were again.

This had been their year. And now all he had was a trip to the other side of the world to look forward to.

He felt a large and familiar hand on his back.

“Nothing inspirational to say today, Monsieur Le Capitan?”

He heard Aurelien Rougerie give a deep chuckle and slowly rub his hand up and down his spine.

“You’ll get over it,” was all he had to say. “We all will.” Roro’s face did not match this hypothesis. “We’ll beat Castres for sure next year.”

“Forgive me, I feel so inspired,” Wes said back, drily.

They had three months now to get over it, three months to make sure it never happened again.

“I think, Fof,” Roro began, “tonight may be a good night for the both of us to get horrendously drunk. Oh but wait,” he muttered, “I forgot.” He raised his hand to wipe his face. “You’re whipped.” He grimaced, obviously not finding an un-muddied patch of himself to clear his cheek.

“Shut up,” Wes snarled. He wasn’t in the mood for this.  

“Shouldn’t you be seeing to that? Or...” Roro raised a knowing eyebrow.

“He’s got people to see,” Wes finished, rolling his eyes. He mis-judged Julien Malzieu’s throw by seconds and the plastic bottle of water bounced uselessly off the tips of his fingers and rolled away across the dressing room floor. “Dammit.”

“Dammit because of your boy’s fan club, or dammit because that sums up our afternoon?”

“He’s _not_ my boy,” Wes said petulantly.

“Aw,” Roro grinned, “the denial is adorable.”

“Where is he, anyway?” Asked Wes, suddenly noting his absence.

“Who?” said Roro, innocently.

Morgan was singularly the number one most popular person after a game. He made it his business to speak to everyone in the room, at least twice- or at least, that was how it had always felt to the rest of them. It had gotten to the point where some of the staff sought him out right after the final whistle, just to get that conversation out of the way.

However, right now he was nowhere to be seen.

“Whatever,” Wes muttered, pulling some dirty strapping from his shoulder and delicately placing it on Roro’s head. “ _I..._ am going for a shower.”

He walked out past the showers, out the changing room door, and down the corridor.

Morgan’s absence was worrying. It wasn’t like him to neglect his social agenda. And besides, maybe if he could even get him on his own... he’d found out enough during the week after all, just how rehabilitating being in excessive amounts of Morgan’s company could be. And when he could finally be prised away from his socialite duties, Morgan always came searching for him.

Morgan had begun to lean on him, more and more... and despite the circumstances, it thrilled him.

Wes found him finally, miserable, in an empty room half-way between the home and away changing rooms.

“It’s not like you to sulk.”

Wes closed over the door behind him, more to drown out the celebrations emanating from the “home” end of the corridor than anything else.

“I’m not sulking,” Morgan protested, “my leg hurts.”

“Why aren’t you seeing Doc about it?”

“I did... he wants a scan on Monday. But I think...” Morgan ran his hand over his left knee. “I think I’ll be out for a while. Out for July. So I... needed a minute.”

 “Sulking.” Wes confirmed.

The only things in the room were the low table Morgan sat on, pushed against the back wall, and what appeared to be several bags of training equipment.

“Smile for me, Parra,” Wes could hear his tone soften, “frowning doesn’t suit you. Well,” he sat down beside him and lifted his hand to push thin strands of fringe from his face, “it doesn’t suit you that much.”

Morgan dodged his hand. “I said that I needed a minute,” he snarled. Wes saw his knuckles tighten on his knee. “Go away.”

He’d never seen Morgan this angry about a result, so it wasn’t that that was bothering him. Wes decided to proceed with relative caution.

“Where does it hurt?”

Morgan ignored him.

Wes reached across him and gently touched his tight hand with the tips of his fingers.

“Here?” he breathed, brushing Morgan’s cheek with his lips.

Well, he had intended on _relative_ caution.

“Wes...” Morgan began sternly.

“... here?”

He let his hand slowly slide down, just below the joint.

“It was worse when I was running on it,” Morgan said, his expression set.

Wes leaned towards him, letting his other hand run gently across the back of his jersey. He could feel the mud beginning to cake and the soft crumble of chalk beneath his fingers.

“Seriously, Fofana. Cut it out.” Morgan shifted out of his reach.

“No, Grumps.” Wes laughed. He lifted the hand that had slid from Morgan’s knee and grasped Morgan’s jaw firmly with his fingers. Morgan didn’t fight when he turned his face slowly towards his.

Some of the hardness in Morgan’s expression drained when he met Wes’s eyes, and Wes finally saw the real problem.

_What could he possibly have to be afraid of?_

He shook the thought quickly from his mind.

“You know,” he said, feeling the side of his mouth twist upwards, “whatever it is, I’m sure I could kiss it better for you.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Morgan said flatly, raising an eyebrow.

Wes leaned slowly towards him, watching Morgan’s eyes as they flickered to study his approaching lips. He paused, waiting for the slight catch in Morgan’s breath, waiting for him to lean forward too, and in to Wes’s waiting mouth, almost against his own will.

“Better?”

“No.” Morgan grinned.

“Huh.” _Result_.

This time Wes pulled Morgan towards him by the waist, sliding in between his arms and moving closer.

“M’knee!” Morgan’s protest was half-hearted. Wes felt a hand slide over his thigh and he placed his own on it, running it up his leg and under his shorts. Encouraged, Morgan turned more towards him, fitting their legs together, sideways along the side of the table; reaching even further under his shorts.

Morgan giggled suddenly. “We aren’t going to do this in here are we?”

“Hmmm,” Wes felt a familiar lightness drift across his brain at the touch. He kissed him one last time, deeper, making it count. “We shouldn’t be too quick to judge the romantic elements of Pierre-Antoine.” He sat back to scan the room and was surprised to feel the sudden press of Morgan’s lips against his cheek.

“Thank you,” Morgan whispered gently, laying his head on Wes’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Wes whispered, and two sets of arms reached at the same time- somehow avoiding a disastrous outcome. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

“I know,” Morgan continued. “I know. I think... right now... I just need you to hold me for a bit.”

This admission gave Wes an unprecedented amount of satisfaction.

“Well I did come here to cheer you up... and you’re sulking on me again.”

 “Sorry,” Morgan chuckled and lifted his head from where it rested against Wes’s ear, “my turn.” This time he kissed Wes on purpose, and Wes let him.

It was good. It felt good. All of it- Morgan and his lips and his tongue and his teeth. Driving everything else from his mind but the two of them.

Even the door opening.

When Brice Dulin dropped the bags of equipment loudly onto the concrete floor, they were jerked- quite rudely- out of their reverie.

“Oops,” he grinned, watching them hurriedly separate and collect themselves.

“Dulin,” Wes acknowledged sheepishly.

“Ever heard of knocking?” Morgan snapped.

Wes was taken aback by the sudden change of attitude. Again.

“Steady on,” he warned.

“I have never had a reason to,” Brice continued, general cheery disposition seemingly unaffected by Morgan’s tone.

“We’d better get back,” Wes said, after an uncertain pause, where he got the feeling Morgan was purposely avoiding eye contact with the both of them, “before someone realises we’re both missing and does some quick sums in their head.” He placed a hand low on Morgan’s back and pressed against it slightly. “Come on,” he whispered, hopping down from the table.

Morgan shook him off.

Wes opened his mouth to enquire after the mood swing- to be fair, they had never been caught out before; even though sniggers at the hotel breakfast table suggested otherwise- when Morgan finally spoke.

“How is he, Brice?”

“How is who?” Wes and Brice both asked at the same time. Brice, however, sounded like he knew exactly who Morgan was referring too.

“Brice... please...”

“I didn’t think you cared. I don’t think you even dumped him properly.”

Brice was still smiling smugly like they were discussing last weekend’s football results. Wes, on the other hand, felt like someone had dropped a bowling ball on his lungs.

Morgan had been afraid, because he might miss the tests in July. He might not get to see Max.

It had only been a little while. A little while since they’d both ceased to talk about him. But it wasn’t like he wasn’t still there- like a giant white elephant that occasionally wedged itself in the bed between them.

Morgan lifted his head.

“ _He_ dumped _me_.” He corrected, looking surprised.

For the first time, something flickered across Brice’s expression.

“Morgan, _please_ ,” Wes said hurriedly, not liking the sudden look in his eye. Morgan ignored him.

“He dumped _me_ ,” he insisted.

“ _Morgan_ ,” Wes pleaded, placing a hand on his arm. “Come on.”

“ _Stop_ , Wes,” Morgan said dismissively, pulling it away. “Can you... can you just give us a minute?”

Wes looked at Morgan, and then at Brice, looking thoughtful and remaining silent- obviously recognising a domestic when he saw one.

“No,” he snarled, looking back at Morgan.

“Just-“

Wes didn’t realise what he was doing until he had reached out and caught Morgan’s face in his hands.

“You’re with me now,” he said in a low voice. “Aren’t you?”

“Wes...” Morgan murmured gently.

 “You’re happy, aren’t you?”

“Just... just a minute.”

“I’ll stay.”

“No,” Morgan said quickly.

Wes dropped his hands. “I’m asking nicely,” he snorted.

“Don’t make me chose between the two of you,” Morgan pleaded, eyes wide.

“ _Choose?”_ Wes could hear is voice growing louder even though he didn’t want it to. “Morgan, after you guys broke up, _you came on to me._ You already _chose_. Three whole weeks ago.”

“I... no,” Morgan murmured.

“Yes. _Yes_ , Morgan. _I_ wanted you to go after Max, remember?”

“I didn’t think-“

“’ _Oh stay with me, Wes. I don’t want you to go. Fuck me, Wes_ -“

Morgan snapped.

“ _Get out_ , Fofana. _NOW!_ ” he roared.

Wes didn’t know what to say. It was a first.

He turned and slowly walked towards the door. He slammed it shut behind him.

***

“Don’t you think,” Brice asked gently, “that was a little harsh?”

Morgan had already hidden his face in his hands.

“ _Brice_ ,” he moaned.

“You asked for my help,” Brice raised an eyebrow. “Remember,” he pointed out, when Morgan raised his head quizzically, “when you rang me after this first happened?”

“You told me to fuck off, if I remember correctly.”

Brice grinned. “Well, that time I thought you’d be fine. It was only when I heard otherwise that I thought you could... use a little nudge in the right direction.”

“Wes...,” Morgan whispered. “Is Wes the right direction?”

Brice laughed. “I know my powers are legendary, but I’m not a psychic.” He raised an eyebrow. “Also, I can’t believe you trust me to be impartial. Besides, I do owe you.”

“You owe me?” Morgan asked, surprised.

“Yeah,” Brice grinned, but he meant it. “For making my best friend superly ecstatically happy. Well, you know. For a little while.”

Morgan managed a weak smile as Brice came over to the table and sat down beside him.

“Does Max know?”

“That I’m intervening, or that you’re screwing Fofana again?”

Morgan thought for a moment.

“He never knows when you’re intervening,” he smiled wryly and looked up at Brice. He was leaning on his knees to steady himself.

“He heard through the grapevine,” Brice inclined his head in the direction of the door. “About Fofana.”

Morgan stared down at his dangling feet.

“I think he thought that you guys had just... put things on hold.” Brice continued. “Taken a breather. Not ended them completely.”

“There’s a difference?”

Brice sat back on his hands. “Well, I would have thought so. I mean, if there was a chance you were going to pick things up again- and relatively soon- that would seem to be an incentive not to shack up elsewhere.”

Morgan swallowed. “Putting things on hold is always the beginning of the end.”

Brice rolled his eyes. “No need to be dramatic.”

“I’m such a dickhead,” Morgan whined. “Brice, I _swear_ \- I seem to keep hurting him and every time I don’t mean it.” He groaned audibly.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Brice sighed, tilting his head back and becoming engrossed with the damp patches on the ceiling. “You slept with Fofana, and in whatever context, _douchebag_ \- Max was never going to be okay with it.”

They sat in silence for a while, Morgan growing more and more guilty about how he’d dismissed Wes.

“So what do I do, maestro?” He asked finally.

“You decide. And that’s that. No going back. Max or Wes, that’s it. And,” he said, “you make sure that both of them know it.”

Morgan shook his head.

“Oh,” Brice scratched his chin, “I _insist_.”

“Is that a threat, Bricey?” Morgan felt the sudden urge to laugh.

Brice’s smile widened, if that were even possible. Morgan was pretty sure he could see all of his teeth. “Do you want to find out?”

Morgan had no doubt whatsoever of Brice’s capabilities. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

“I find,” Brice said lazily, “when I have to make a decision, I chose one side, and sit on it for a few days. And if,” he continued, “it still doesn’t feel right, then it’s the wrong decision.”

“Bricey, I don’t have your brain. Mine’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“No it’s not. If being with Wes felt so right- and by the sounds of things, that’s the idea you were dishing out- why did you chuck him out like that at the mention of Max?”

Morgan swallowed. _Caught._

“It’s been three weeks, as Wes so kindly reminded me,” Morgan felt the words spill out of his mouth in a bid to excuse his behaviour, “I need more than three weeks... to get over Max. I’d imagine he’d like to think so too.”

“But you don’t _have_ to get over him now, not if no ass dumping was had.” Brice said.

“Not back then,” Morgan muttered, “but I’d imagine now that this ass is completely and one hundred percent dumped.”

There was a pause, and they both burst out laughing.

“Do you love Wes?” Brice asked boldy. And when Morgan didn’t answer- “ _really_?”

“I don’t know,” Morgan mumbled. “Sometimes... sometimes it feels like it.”

“Like before I walked in?”

“Like before you walked in,” Morgan confirmed with a sigh.

“You should tell him, you know,” Brice mused.

“... It’s not...” Morgan croaked- suddenly finding it difficult to speak. Whenever he thought about Max his hands had an annoying way of remembering the feel of Max’s hair tangled around his fingers, and his mouth had an even more annoying habit of burning like it had just been subjected to his lips. “It’s nothing like...” he rocked slightly and busied his fingers when he grasped the side of the table to steady himself.

“I won’t tell,” Brice said gently. “I won’t laugh either. Promise.”

“Max was _everything_ ,” Morgan breathed, finally. “I’ve never felt like that about anyone before. It’s scary, and I know it scares Max more than me... but I can’t imagine feeling like this about anyone else, either. I mean... I could probably come close, if I wanted to.” He raised his hand to touch his trembling lips. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t,” Brice suggested.

“It wasn’t working, Brice. When I’m with Wes, the feelings aren’t the same, but it _works_. And I think if I gave it enough time... Wes could be, well, _enough_.”

“Hmmmm,” Brice said. Morgan wished he’d stop sounding so amused.

“I can’t leave Wes. Not now. It’d kill him. And being with him is so _nice_. It really is, Bricey. He fixed me, twice.”

“ _Hmmmm_ ,” Brice grinned.

“You said you wouldn’t laugh!” With some difficulty, Brice pursed his lips together.

“And if I saw Max again?” Even thinking about him at a safe distance was torture. “The longer I stay away the easier it will get I suppose...” He trailed off. The more he was trying to stop it, the worse it got... the weight of Max’s hand over his heart, the soft trail of fingers down over his chest, his stomach...

“I have a question,” Brice said cautiously. “I don’t think it’s one you’ll want to hear, but it’s an eventuality you should probably consider.”

 Morgan had a horrible feeling that he knew what it was going to be.

“What if the next time you saw Max, he was with someone else?” Brice’s voice was gentle, but the idea that it planted in Morgan’s head was frightening.

He forgot to breathe.

“It’s not impossible,” Brice whispered quietly.

Morgan felt dizzy. He closed his eyes. It was a mistake.

 Max’s hands trailing down the chest of some, faceless stranger instead. Letting someone else’s fingers in his hair. Somebody else sharing Max’s apartment. Someone who probably likes coffee, Morgan thought bitterly. Someone else to complain about the size of his shirts... someone else to take them off at night.

No. Max was _his_. Morgan’s.

And Wes? Wes wrapped around someone else?

But it wasn’t like that with Wes. Should it be?

Two bodies in Max’s shower...

But _no-_ it couldn’t just be Max. He had to feel like this about Wesley too. Right? There had to be some jealously in that image...

And yet, his head filled with this unadorned and unidentified person; curled up with Max on his armchair while Max talked himself to sleep and smiled his wonderful smile- _looking at someone else like he only ever looked at me_.

He felt like someone had given him the slap in the face that he both needed and deserved.

“Oh my _God_ ,” he gasped suddenly, air finally reaching his lungs- more air than had been in them in months; as though waiting for that switch to flick all long, “ _Brice_ -“

 “Don’t say another word!” Brice leapt from the table. “No,” he said when Morgan opened his mouth, “not one more.”

He grinned and patted Morgan on the head. “Good boy,” he laughed, and Morgan tried to scowl through the realisation hitting him like a ten-tonne truck.

If love was a drug, Max was the very worst kind. The kind that left you hollow and paralysed without a hit. And Morgan would never be able to fully remove the traces of him, the trails he had left deep in his skin, forever and perpetually craving that one last rush.

And yet there were some evident and complicated problems that came with this.

 “What about Wes? And Max... Max must _hate_ me Brice.”

“I can talk to Wes first for you,” Brice offered, excitedly. “Take some of the edge off. And Max... don’t be an idiot, Morgan. You’ve definitely broken his heart. But, you know, you can fix it. Or can try to.”

Brice reached at the table behind Morgan and handed him his phone.

“Call him,” he said firmly. “Call him, and tell him what you just told me.”


	14. Fourteen

Brice wondered, as he propped himself up against the wall and looked down at the literal apparition of misery as it sat across the corridor from him, if this was the first time Welsey Fofana had ever been in a situation where he had not won first preference. Romantically, anyway.

That led on to Brice wondering how many romantic situations Wes had actually been in. He had a bit of a reputation to uphold, after all.

He must have really liked Morgan.

Brice felt guilty, but only for a second. He had witnessed first-hand the effect of their affair on Max, and in comparison, Wes was doing quite well.

“You knew this was coming, didn’t you?” he asked to break the silence.

Wes let out a long sigh and curled up to rest his chin on his knees- staring straight ahead.

“I did.”

“I’m sorry.”

For the first time, Wes looked right at him. “You’re not.”

“I’m not what?” Brice teased.

“Sorry.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” He asked, grinning suddenly.

Wes cracked a smile. “You’re alright, Dulin.”

Brice did not consider himself easily prone to embarrassment, but something about Wes’s voice made him feel quite warm. “All part of the service,” he said, trying to mask his sudden discomfort. “The two of them are romantics anyway, it was Morgan’s own imagination that did most of the work I’m pretty sure.”

Brice waited for Wes to take another slow breath.

“That’s it then?” Wes asked eventually, not breaking Brice’s gaze. Brice resisted the urge to fidget. “Just like that, and we’re done.”

“Well, I’m sure Morgan will want to talk to you about it. I know he’ll want you to still be his friend.” Brice offered.

“I don’t want to be _just_ his friend,” Wes mumbled. Because Brice had spent too long locked to his unfairly large and shiny pupils, he was inclined more strongly than normal to believe him. “But he’s never going to stop loving Max, is he?”

“ _Never_ is a bit strong.” Brice saw the pain on his face and had to forcefully remind himself of which side he was on. “You seem to be handling this pretty well.”

Wes looked away, finally, and Brice couldn’t tell if he was relieved. “I want to cry,” he  whispered, hanging his head.

“You’ll get over it,” Brice said out loud. _What am I_ saying? “I mean,” he added hurriedly, “at least if they don’t work out again, Morgan will know where to go.”

“I’d send him straight back,” Wes said dully. “Anyway,” he looked up at Brice again without warning and Brice felt the beginnings of blush in his cheeks. “Why is Max getting you to do the work for him? If he wants Morgan back so badly, he could make some effort for it.”

“ _Someone_ had to step in,” Brice said drily, “because the two of them are so busy being _noble_ that they are gradually growing more and more miserable. You may have noticed- while deleting certain received messages, I’m guessing, eh? Don’t worry, I won’t tell- how painfully polite those messages were. Max thinks Morgan is better off with you, and Morgan thinks that he’s doing Max a favour by staying away.”

“So?” Wes said, his anger definitely growing. “ _I_ like it that way.”

“Oh really?” Brice said, looking up at the ceiling. “You’re never scared that Max just might show up? You said yourself that you know that Morgan still loves him.”

Wes glared at him. Brice’s throat tightened when he felt it.

The ceiling was very definitely not as interesting to look at as Wes. He had to stop looking at Wes.

“You’re good, Dulin,” his voice said stonily. “I’ll give you that.”

“They need to figure it out themselves.” He looked back at him. “ _Together_. And Morgan needs to do it,” he took a deep breath, “without feeling that he needs to be loyal to you. So I need you, _please_ , to make sure it’s over.”

He sank to his knees in front of Wes so he could look at him properly. “Please,” he whispered. “Max is a _wreck_ , Wes. It took a lot out of him to admit how much he liked Morgan in the first place. He needs closure, just for Morgan, because Morgan was his first. And look, who knows,” he lied, “Morgan may decide that he’s perfectly happy to be with you instead after all.”

Wes watched him for several seconds from where his head rested on his knees. Brice felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch the mud at his elbow.

What was going _on_? They’d been friends for years, all of them. True, one-on-one conversations of this nature were limited. And maybe it would help if Wes hadn’t been the first of the two he’d seen in liplock.

Wes had nice lips he thought, looking at them. And nice hands. Big hands. He wondered what those hands would feel like on his skin.

He tried desperately to push those thoughts from his mind. His face was really burning now.

_I do not need this._

_I do not need a crush on Wesley Fofana._

“You’re right,” Wes said finally. “They _do_ need to sort it out. And I know it’s bigger than me. I...” he swallowed. “I really like him, Bricey.”

Brice wished he wouldn’t tell him, of all people. He carefully reached out and placed his hand on Wes’s arm, trying to ignore very sternly how soft and warm it was.

“You’ll be fine,” he promised. “It’s no fun being a rebound, right?”

Wes snorted. He shook Brice off and then pushed himself to his feet.

“Like you’d know, Dulin,” he snarled.


	15. Fifteen

Morgan stared at his phone for the longest time, cupped in his hands.

 _Just go for it_ , he urged himself, _you have to start somewhere._

Holding his breath, he quickly hit _Call_ and lifted the phone to his ear.

 _Don’t pick up,_ he found himself desperately pleading. _For the love of God, don’t pick up the phone_.

_Beeep._

He swallowed.

_Beeep._

_Stupid._ He told himself. _Stupid, stupid. He’s not going to want to talk to you. You’ll be on Caller ID._

_Beeeep._

  _Why the fuck did I not turn off my Caller ID_.

_Beeeep._

With every ring the tone seemed to grow longer. Morgan fidgeted suddenly, shifting his body weight from one side to another.

 _Beeeeeeep_.

 _Breathe._ He commanded. _Breathe Parra. It’s a stupid phone call._

_Beeeeeeeep._

_He’s not picking up._ Morgan felt dizzy. _Just_ breathe _._

“Hello?”

The syllable was so sudden that it jolted Morgan to life- losing his balance and tipping sideways off the table- bending his sore knee as he landed on the concrete.

He howled.

“Hello?” Max’s slightly crackled voice demanded, with sudden urgency.

“Max?” Morgan gasped, filling his lungs with slightly-too-much air again.

“ _Morgan_?” Max’s voice said, sounding dumbfounded.

“Yeah,” Morgan coughed.

“I... um. I- hold on.” Suddenly his voice sounded far away and Morgan realised he was pressing his phone to his ear with both of his hands, and that he could feel the slight imprint of each button on the keypad press against his cheek.

Voices. Morgan could hear voices. Ones he didn’t recognise. He curled up on his side on the concrete.

“Where are you?” he demanded, when he heard Max’s breath in his ear again.

“Home,” Max replied simply.

Max’s home. Max’s lovely blue home.

“In Paris?” He guessed, out loud.

“No, Bordeaux. Why,” Max lowered his voice suddenly. “Why are you calling?” He asked wonderingly. The huskiness in his hushed tone raised hairs at the back of Morgan’s neck.

“I wanted to see how you were,” he said lamely. “Who are you with?” His jaw was so tense that he wouldn’t have been surprised if his teeth shattered when he brought them together.

 _It’s not team mates. Not if he’s home. Oh God._ He struggled to calm himself. Stupid Brice and his stupid speculating...

“My mother,” Max said dully. “And my brother. They’re in the other room, I had to ask them to turn down the TV. You... you’re on it, at the moment.”

“Oh,” Morgan breathed.

“Uh, hard luck.” Max said after several uncomfortable seconds of silence. “You know. Today, Last week.”

“Did you watch?” Morgan asked. His breathing was getting easier. Max could be saying anything, as long as he could hear his voice. He realised with a painful kick how much he missed hearing Max’s voice. No one else sounded like his Max when he spoke to him.

“No,” Max’s voice said, rumbling softly against his heart strings. “I... I couldn’t. Sorry.”

“Oh,” Morgan swallowed. With difficulty, over the lump growing on it.

He could hear Max breathe against the mouthpiece. He closed his eyes slowly. Max could be here. Max could be right next to him, here on the floor- smiling so his eyes crinkled and with his curls hanging over his eyes.

‘I miss you,” Morgan blurted out suddenly.

Max was silent.

“Max-“

“Are you high?” Max demanded suddenly.

“No,” Morgan snapped, offended.

And Max did what Morgan hadn’t expected him to do in front of him again. He laughed. It was like someone had injected liquid happiness into Morgan’s veins.

_I could be high, now, after hearing you laugh._

“I’m sorry,” Max spluttered.  He cleared his throat. “I guess... I guess I just didn’t expect to hear you say... that you missed me. From what I’ve heard you... er...” he coughed. “Well,” he said quietly, “you got over it pretty quickly.”

“I... I’ve been such a _twat_ , Max. To you. Especially to you. I never wanted to hurt you. I didn’t realise that you only wanted space. I thought- Maxou, I promise- I thought you’d finished with me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I- I want-,” he took a deep breath. “Do you think,” he said quietly, “I could... see you?”

He regretted the moment his current deepest desire left his mouth.

“Why,” Max began coldly, after a pause, “the hell would you want that?”

 “I... want to apologise.” He just wanted to see him. A phone call wasn’t enough.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Max said, sounding stiff.

“I’ve tried,” he mumbled, “I’ve tried to stay away. I promise. I don’t deserve a minute of your time. I don’t, I really- but... it would be great to see you. I miss you, you know. You have to know how much I miss you.”

“Don’t say that,” Max’s voice said back, almost gently.

“Little Maxou.” His voice cracked. He thought he heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line, but he could have imagined it. “You can’t imagine how much I wish you were here right now. How much... how much I wish I could hold you.”

Silence.

“Don’t say that, either,” Max replied weakly. “Morgan- you can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” he croaked.

Max cleared his throat. “Morgs,” he began sadly. “What about Wes? If you don’t like him, how did that happen?”

“It’s over. I promise. I can’t get over you, Maxou. I don’t even want to try anymore.”

“This is what I mean,” Max said, sounding impatient. “It’s not just about _you_. There are three of us in this now. And Wes... he might be really good for you Morgan. You don’t know that yet.”

“He’s not,” Morgan said, with some difficulty.

“Fine,” Max sighed. “ _I_ wasn’t good for you. There, I said it. Look, Morgan- you were _ill_ because of me, weren’t you? I know... I know you said it was because you missed me but... it’s not good. And you said... you said you could manage to sleep when... when _he_ was there, right? So, you see,” he finished, “he _is_ good for you.”

 “Oh,” Morgan breathed, closing his eyes. Max’s point was weak, he decided, but he supposed people had been dumped on lesser reasoning.

Max cleared his throat. “I don’t think you should call me anymore,” he said firmly. “And if you want to... er... I’ll see you for the tests. Okay?”

The tests. Morgan had almost forgotten about the stupid tests. The stupid tests he probably wouldn’t be going to. He wondered if he should tell Max. He wondered if Max would think he was making it up.

“Okay,” he croaked. And then he took a deep breath.

“Max?”

“Yeah?” Max said back, softly. Maybe he knew, maybe Morgan had a way of saying Max’s name right before he told him.

“I love you, you know.” His heart fluttered softly.

“Okay,” Max whispered. And then he hung up.

Morgan sat up, hugging his knees.

“ _Okay”_? Was that the same as “I know”? Or “me too”? Or “fuck off”?

***

Max’s hands were shaking so much that he quickly placed his phone on the couch beside him, lest it smash all over the tiled floor.

“ _Okay_?” he groaned, flopping resignedly back against the cushions.

Did Morgan really mean it? Could he really not be seeing Wes anymore?

He sighed. He’d heard that one before. It was going to take a minute to be able to get up though. That last declaration of Morgan’s had been decidedly below the belt.

Max missed him too. Space had been a bad, _bad_ idea; and he’d known it the minute he’d suggested it- the minute he’d kissed him goodbye. Morgan knew, Morgan _had_ to have known that Max’s biggest fear was that he’d finally come to his senses and realise he could do better- Wes, for example.

Oh, but he did miss _everything_ about him. Max covered his face with his hands.

His heart ached.  _Everything_ ached. Morgan had caused him several weeks of pain and misery, but right now, he could really use that wonderful calm he felt when Morgan wrapped around him.

He lay on his side, closing his eyes- almost willing the feeling of another body's heat pressed against his back.

It was for Morgan's own good. It had to be. He didn't really want Max. He'd be with Wes, and be happy. He  _would_.

Now he just had to ignore how badly this thought wanted to make him cry.


	16. Chapter 16

Morgan decided not to look for Wes when he finally had the strength to drag himself back into the changing rooms. Not yet. Not while his ears were still ringing with Max’s voice. He barely felt the heat of the shower, was only dimly aware of the order he dressed himself.

They’d lost. This behaviour was acceptable. Suddenly he didn’t care.

Everyone picked up their bags to leave, and Morgan decided maybe now was a good time to inch in Wes’s direction. He slid his hand under his arm to touch at the soft inside of his elbow.

“Wes-“ he began.

“Can we not?” Wes asked in a low voice. He kept his head bent. “Not yet. When we get to your place, alright?”

“Wes-“ he tried again, pressing down with his fingers.

Wes shook his arm free to stretch his favourite monstrous headphones over his ears. “Later,” he mouthed, stepping past him.

He couldn’t tell if Wes was angry or hurting but one thing was for sure- he wanted nothing to do with Morgan.

Morgan followed anyway, helplessly, with a dark, hollow feeling growing in his stomach. He couldn’t lose Wes, but yet... had they gone too far to go back to what they had been before?

He followed Wes to the bus, where Wes seated himself firmly down beside Roro. Morgan watched him the whole journey home from across the aisle, regardless, only noting briefly that Benjamin Kayser’s eyes, too, were riveted on the both of them.

He didn’t try and talk to him again, though, until they’d climbed the four flights of stairs to Morgan’s apartment, and Morgan had closed the door firmly behind him.

“Wes...” Morgan began again. He watched Wes’s back as he shrugged his jacket off and let it fall across the couch. “I...”

“What?” Wes asked- his voice a harsh whisper.

Morgan stretched out his fingers at his sides before he finally balled them tight in to fists. No words in the world were going to fix how this felt.

“I...” he tried again, but the sounds wouldn’t come out. His throat had now grown so tight that he was having trouble breathing. And Wes... Wes faced him, arms out, palms up- his face a horrible wide-eyed question that Morgan didn’t want to see.

He was still, even if it was just a little bit, Morgan’s. There were things that they had been through together and had done together that no one else would understand. Morgan knew he wasn’t in love with him; not like Max, _never_ like Max. But still... he had meant what he’d said to Brice. If he tried, really tried, maybe some day he could come close.

And he hesitated, and because it was Wes, Wes said: “Look, you know what?” and he closed the space between them.

Morgan knew what was happening but there was something about that question in Wes’s face- one which he then felt in his lips- that made him weak. He needed to know the answer too.

Wes cradled Morgan’s face, holding Morgan’s body close to his and kissing him with such intensity that it made Morgan dizzy- his hands gripped at Wes’s shirt, straining the cloth as he scrunched it in against his palm.

When Morgan kissed Max, he felt dizzy because of his smell, his closeness, this aura that hung around him and made Morgan’s heart stop beating- when he felt dizzy kissing Wes, normally it had more to do with how Wes would crush him close until he was unable to breathe.

 “Stop!” he yelped, pushing suddenly with his hands- seeing the fabric of Wes’s shirt still creased around his fingers as they sat spread across his chest- pushing him away, as far away as his arms would let him.

 “I’m so sorry, “ he gasped, unable to look up, not wanting to see Wes, he couldn’t take it- he couldn’t take any hurt Wes might be feeling on top of his own: a hurt that suddenly ripped through his body as he realised that Max was gone.

He swallowed loudly and gently released Wes’s shirt, stepping carefully past him and over towards his television. He paused, then lifted the stack of books from the top of his phone directory and sighed. He’d covered up Max’s words the minute he’d arrived in from the station that day, to forget them, so Wes wouldn’t see them. He gently traced the last physical evidence he had of Max’s love with the ends of his fingers: _Love_ , _M._

That had been the best day. And the worst.

 _I just need a while_ , Max’s words sounded in his ears. Just a while. _Without you_ , he’d added. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

That day could have been so much worse, only Wes had been there. He chanced a glance back over his shoulder to Wes, now flopped back on Morgan’s couch. He cleared his throat when he saw that he had Morgan’s attention, but his voice was still hoarse when he spoke.

“Sorry,” he grunted. “It was worth a try, right?” He coughed.

Morgan picked up the heavy book with both hands and brought Max’s message close to his chest as he walked over to sit down on the couch beside Wes.

“It’s not like you to get sentimental,” Wes pointed out gently, as Morgan placed it flat on his lap again and let his fingers run slowly over the gentle loops of Max’s words. When Morgan didn’t reply Wes cleared his throat again.

“I never understood,” he began, and then he hesitated.

“Never understood what?” Morgan breathed.

Wes made a noise as if to speak, and Morgan allowed himself to raise his head to look at him. Wes was watching him, looking slightly guilty, as though he knew he should have brought this up a while ago.

“How did you think he could just... _stop_ feeling like that about you?” He shifted uncomfortably in the silence after the question.

“I know,” Wes began again, interrupting his own speculative pause. “What do I know about those feelings, right?”

“Wes-“ Morgan began desperately. _Please_ , he wanted to say. _It hurts enough already._

“- but he told me. Morgan- he was going to leave you, he was getting on that train- that first time- and he was a mess, Jesus, he was in pieces-“

“ _Wes_ ,” Morgan croaked. His throat had closed completely.

“No, Morgan, _listen to me_.” Wes slipped a hand around Morgan’s wrist, squeezing sharply when Morgan attempted to tug it away, so sharply that it caused Morgan to yelp in pain.

“He was leaving you. _Leaving you._ And guess what he was saying Morgan? That he loved you.” Morgan couldn’t tell if the tears that blurred his eyes now were from the agony of his impossibly constricted chest or the grip of Wes’s hand. “You hadn’t even _explained_ yourself and he told me that at that moment all he wanted was you with him. And then there was the second round-,” he yanked now so Morgan was forced to turn to face him while desperately trying to free himself from Wes’s iron grip with the fingers of his remaining free hand. “Where I had to stand and watch him kiss you. He left you because he didn’t love you? More like you broke his fucking heart.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Morgan gasped suddenly, choking on the sob rising in his throat. His free hand grasped at the front of Wes’s shirt, trying desperately not to believe the resentment that stared from his eyes.

“I couldn’t,” Wes struggled to regain control of his tone, “understand your logic. How you could give what he feels for you up,” his lips drew back in a low snarl as he spoke now, and Morgan was almost far too stunned by his words to register that they were making him cry,  “so you could spend your days sulking and getting fucked by me.”

Morgan squeezed his eyes shut and desperately tried to hide his face in the crook of his elbow.

“Why Morgan? Why did you just let him leave?” Wes hissed. “Why didn’t you go after him? All the way after him. Why did you feel like... you had to get me in to bed with you to avoid answering that question?”

Morgan let his hands sink deeper into Wes’s shirt as the first sob forced its way from his mouth.

Why? Why hadn’t he gone after Max, in that moment, in the station? Max had smelled like happiness when he’d slid in to his arms- he was here, he hadn’t left, _still his_. Max had trusted him, completely, like Morgan had promised that he could.

Was it because at that moment Morgan had felt totally and utterly ashamed of himself? He’d always scoffed at affairs in books or movies- _cheating_ was always with someone younger, some stranger, and both parties were always so _stupid_ , so _weak_. It was never with someone like Wes- someone as much a part of Morgan as the scars on his knees, and it was never to someone quite as loved as Max- it hadn’t been a fight, it hadn’t been boredom. And yet Morgan at that moment had felt very much like one of those fictional infidels that he’d always wanted to shake so much sense in to.

Max didn’t deserve that. And so when he’d pulled away and told Morgan that he was still getting the train, alone, Morgan had gaped and gaped like a suffocating fish- numb with the realisation of how much of a back-stabbing fraud he was.

As he did to Wes right now. Because he was a coward. A miserable, pathetic coward- and couldn’t face neither Wes nor Max to tell them that what had happened between him and Wes hadn’t even been that much of an accident.

Tears began to blind his eyes. Wes let go of his hand suddenly, and something in his voice softened. His lips trembled and it was only after that Morgan realised that he might have been about to apologise, although it was quickly swallowed.

“Just,” Wes mumbled, hesitantly catching Morgan’s cheek, “know that you can fix it, that’s all. You _have_ to fix this.” He cleared his throat. “I can’t help you, though. I can’t be here while you try and get him back, Morgan.” He dropped his hand and turned away, and Morgan choked back another sob, reaching to touch his fingers to Wes’s arm.

“You,” he whispered, “and me. What if I want to fix _us_? I need you like... like I need him.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Wes threw his hands in the air. “Morgan, this stops _now_. You absolutely do _not_ ,” he stood up, “need me like you need him. You two are just... _addicted_ to each other. You are: Parra you love him, like you were never, ever going to love me- I mean, I saw you two together for about a minute, and I know. I can’t... I can’t _take_ _it_ anymore.”

He ran his hands through his hair and Morgan realised with a sudden pang that Wes had wanted to say this for weeks.

”I can’t do this without you,” Morgan admitted, his body trembling. “I can’t do this without my best friend.”

Wes sighed and turned around. He reached for his jacket at the back of the chair.

“I can’t be your friend, Morgan,” he rasped. “Not right now. You know I can’t. Look...” he turned away again, refusing to meet Morgan’s eyes as they searched desperately for his. “I’ll see you in August, alright? Maybe... then you might know what you want.” He smiled sadly and lifted his bag on to his shoulder as he turned and walked gingerly to Morgan’s door.


	17. Chapter 17

Max was having one of _those_ days.

More often than not- especially now that some time had passed- Max’s days were good ones, clear ones, where he didn’t think about Morgan that often, because nothing would pop up and remind him. He knew he owed it to practise more than anything else, because even though moping was one of his stronger suits, there had been a point where he could no longer stand Brice’s looks of worry across the breakfast table every morning.

Then again, maybe Brice had had practise in pretending not to be worried. He’d seemed pretty damned distressed when he’d shown up at Max’s front door several days after he’d left Clermont, several days after the quarter finals, to find Max sitting in his apartment surrounded by what appeared to be tornado wreckage.

Mess had been a stress-reliever, in that it stopped him from stressing about Morgan, and made him stress about the mess instead. Clearing up the mess would only leave him space to think about Morgan again, so instead he’d just... sat in it. Confessing this had possibly alarmed Brice the most and he’d left Max to his chaos and had returned twenty minutes later with a tub of ice cream and a bottle of whisky which he had tucked in to almost as gratefully as Max had.

Brice had heard, Brice only could have been there because he’d heard. Max knew Brice well enough to guess that he was kicking himself that he had let the situation deteriorate to this level. Poor Brice. But he’d learned early on that at the same time there was no point telling Brice that it had nothing at all to do with him.

Brice was making up for failing to observe that Fofana-shaped flaw in Max and Morgan’s relationship now in spades, Max almost looked forward to finally getting in to his bed alone, to be alone, failing to sleep, and thinking about Morgan. It had happened so often now since they’d been on tour that now it had become routine.

What Morgan was doing now. Where he’d gone wrong. Where Wes had gone right. Slowly coming to regret every small admission of love he’d laid at Morgan’s feet. Hating how much it stung.

 “And how,” Brice had asked, making grabbing motions for the whiskey bottle, “are you going to get him back?”

Max had snorted with his mouth full of ice cream. “M’not.”

Brice looked disapproving, and Max had wondered if it had anything to do with the melted Ben and Jerry’s on his chin.

“I don’t think he meant it,” he’d offered.

“Don’t make me joke about him falling on Wes with his clothes off. I will never be in that mood.”

“No,” Brice had looked annoyed. Max should have been taking it seriously. “I don’t think he meant to hurt you. I can’t believe that _Morgan_ would hurt _you_.”

It was Brice saying precisely this that had made the bad days so bad. Because that sentence would replay in his head- Brice. _Confused_. Why would Morgan hurt him? Max had always been the problem- with his blank refusal to come out, or to be in a relationship at all- but he had been falling harder for Morgan every day, and Brice had been best placed to see that.

Well, second to Morgan.

The ice cream and whiskey incident had been exactly what Max had needed. Strangely. Alcohol had loosened his tongue but the more he’d talked the more worried Brice had seemed- and then he’d realised.

This couldn’t go on. He couldn’t openly dwell on Morgan- especially since Morgan was apparently no longer dwelling on him. And so he’d allowed himself- stupidly- one last night of sulking. He and Brice had finished the whiskey, and then a bottle of wine, and the ice cream, and as they’d crawled haphazardly into Max’s bed- a tipsy mess of arms and legs- alcohol gave Max the permission to utter once final, damning sentence.

“I still love him so much, Bricey.”

Brice had joined them on the tour and not mentioned a word about it- and Max was glad. He had spent his nights-because sleep was getting far too elusive- toying with the idea of taking Brice up on his suggestion to win Morgan back. If anyone was capable of it, it had to be Brice. But Brice hadn’t brought it up again, and since Brice didn’t seem to think it worth further discussion, Max decided he shouldn’t either.

He was getting so good at the pretence by this stage that he’d almost believe himself- but it took all of his energy to keep it up and as the tour had worn on his lapses in concentration were beginning to ruin him.

Small things could set him off- brushing his teeth- or, like today, one of _those_ days, after the final test as everyone made their way to the last briefing of the tour, rugby was the grotesque reminder. Having a roommate. Watching Mermoz and Chouly’s slight touches that hinted at the kind of night they’d had.

Still- he’d kept it up for the important part. Brice had been in the door ten minutes when they’d miraculously bumped in to Wes on the corridor: something that Max had managed, through careful timing, to avoid before.

An awkward silence was clearly not on Brice’s agenda, he greeted Wes slightly too enthusiastically, and launched in to the Confederations Cup. Max had taken this opportunity to examine his opponent.

Wes had looked exhausted, his smile tired, although he’d lightened up around the eyes as they’d spoken- Max was sure it was the conversation topic, or maybe even just Brice. Jealously, he’d admired Wes’s lazy smile, how despite his obvious sleeping issues, he was still relaxed. How it could possibly make him _more_ handsome. Max imagined those lips and hands on his Morgan, and had felt the temperature rise slowly under his collar.

 _Mature_ , he’d scolded himself. _Super mature of you._

He’d run in to Wes on his own then, after dinner- or Wes had sought him out, he couldn’t be quite sure- and he could tell that Wes had been waiting for this opportunity; clearing his throat as Max had uttered the most causal “hey, Fof,” as could be managed under the circumstances.

“Max-“ he’d started, uncertainly, igniting the dread in Max’s stomach. “We... we need to talk, don’t we?”

“About as much as I need you to carve out my stomach with a rusty eggbeater,” Max had replied, possibly far too lightly, as Wes, too, had looked alarmed. He wished people would stop looking so disturbed when he came out with these things. Especially since Morgan would probably just have laughed and... he mustn’t think about what Morgan would have done next.

He hated how, among other things, he still painfully loved Morgan for that. Max’s sense of humour got darker and darker- that horrible mix of blunt and morbid and sarcastic- the more tired he became- and Morgan had always just laughed and laughed.

He’d made to move past Wes when he’d blurted: “Max, we broke up, okay? We’re done.”

Max froze. “Done?” he’d echoed. _Done with what_? He’d wanted to add. _Sleeping together? Holding him? Being where I’d give my left arm to be?_

He’d realised, too late, how much hope he’d left hanging in that syllable.

As much has he’d hated everything that Morgan had done, shacking up with a guy who was twice everything Max could be and then some, Max hated himself more for still feeling the same way about him. He missed him- he missed his voice, his eyes, his lips, his hands... he missed his stories, his silences and not being able to think of anything but him when Morgan held him. And when he thought of these things his core flickered and warmed and burned with how much he wanted him back.

 He had to get over it, it was just a crush, and it _had_ to be.

So that was why when Wes had continued: “Yeah... for you,” Max had politely replied with a “Well, that was stupid”.

Today was different. Today, the last day, the worst day so far, and Brice wasn’t sitting with him at dinner. Brice was further down the table, next to Wes, their heads bent together in furious discussion. And as much as Max refused to believe this was about him, he just had a feeling that he was very much the topic of conversation.

He dreaded their next move.


End file.
